Seth Godin has an interesting post on the use and design of tools. His thesis is that some tools, such as a hammer, are immediately accessible to the casual user. Even experienced hammer users aren’t going to be significantly more efficient in their use.
The tools that you and I use—modern tools as Godin puts it—aren’t like that. They’re more complicated and very often difficult for the casual user to use effectively. Sadly, says Godin, these casual users don’t bother to learn how to use these tools well. They take the attitude that they’re too busy to waste time on learning, let alone mastering, their tools. Meanwhile those who do master these tools can be orders of magnitude more efficient with them.
So why does this post have the “Emacs” tag? It’s not a mystery. One of the most frequent complaints that I’ve been seeing against Emacs is that it’s too hard to learn and that, after all, real people have jobs to do and can’t afford to spend time learning things. Left unstated is how all those Emacs users, many of whom have produced truly astounding software, managed to learn Emacs.
Over and over again you see phrases like “VS Code just works out of the box.” That’s great for the casual user “too busy” to master difficult tools but failing to master your tools creates a debt that will come due, probably at a most inconvenient time.
As Godin puts it,
Don’t hold the hammer at the wrong end. And insist on software that’s worth the time it takes to learn.
Most important, once you find software that’s worth the time to learn, learn it.
None of this is to say that you must, or even should, use Emacs. Only that whatever editor you choose, take the time to learn it well.