Over at the Emacs subreddit, Cultural_Mechanic_92 asks How did you become an Emacs power user? It is, I suppose, a reasonable question even if the answer is pretty obvious. The comments are interesting but basically boil down to “you’ll learn by doing”. Of course, the advice is a bit more nuanced: you increase your skills little by little by practicing with Emacs, learning to configure it, and making the tool your own.
It was sort of interesting to read the answers but what struck me was the meta-question of what does it mean to be an Emacs power user and how would you know if you are one. In terms of longevity, I would rate myself as intermediate. I’ve been using Emacs for about 17 years and while that may seem like a long time, plenty of others have 30 or more years in.
In terms of skill, it’s harder to assess. Certainly I can be said to have at least journeyman status and perhaps more but as any experienced Emacs user will tell you, there’s always something else to learn—indeed, hardly a day goes by that I don’t learn something new— so how do you know where you are on the road to power user?
If by “power user” we mean “able to solve virtually any problem that naturally fits into Emacs” then I’m probably a power user. If it means being able to solve any problem that fits in the Emacs sphere, then probably not.
What do you all think? What does it mean to be an Emacs power user? Is it entirely subjective or can we say “be able to do everything on this list and you’re a power user”?