Over at the Emacs subreddit, Thick_Rest7609 says that he associates Emacs use with skill. In particular, he says that he’s inclined to presume presentations using Emacs are representative of a skilled user, whereas a presentation using VS Code is not.
As of this reading, the comments—with one one possible exception—are uniformly negative. Almost no one agrees with him. But I do. This is an opinion that I’ve held for a long time. I don’t claim that it’s universally true that Emacs users dine with the gods while VS Code users are condemned to the netherworld but I do think that your choice of editor says something about you. At least potentially.
We shouldn’t think of this as an inviolable rule but as a hint. Of Course VS Code users can be extraordinarily skilled just as Emacs users can be extraordinarily dim witted. But I think Thick_Rest7609 has a point: In the absence of other information, the use of Emacs does indicate a serious person who has invested in his skill and put in the time and effort to master a very useful, if difficult, tool.
It’s precisely because Emacs does take some effort to master that we can presume it’s users are above average. If you want the easy path, as exemplified by VS Code and its ilk, you may still be a great developer but there’s no reason to presume, a priori, that you are. If you use Emacs, there’s still no guarantee that you are but it’s a much more reasonable assumption.
What do you think? I’m interested in hearing from VS Code users as well as Emacs users.