I love emacs. The consistent interface, strong scripting language
(even if elisp has dynamic scope), and easy extensibility make it a joy
to use. Just off the top of my head, emacs has these applications to
make it worth living in:
- TRAMP
- Org-Mode
- Gnus
- AucTeX, with its live preview
- eshell/ ansi-term
- evil-mode
- Dired
- Proof General (for formal language work in Coq, Agda, etc.)
But I use (neo)vim as my editor. And it’s really for 2 features: good composable commands and easy temporary mappings.
Text objects are amazing once you get used to them. Evil mode has them,
but mapping keys in evil-mode is annoying, and temporary vim-style
mappings.
In vim, you can do this:
:nnoremap s diw<right>
emacs is less friendly to that sort of ad-hoc mapping.
I also like the true color of neovim, but that’s secondary.