Sean Irby has posted his thoughts on why you should be using helm. Irby argues that helm not only makes navigating the Emacs UI easier but also assists in learning Emacs in much the same way that spelling correctors help you learn correct spelling.
Helm is, at heart, an Elisp programming framework that allows you to easily add UI elements to a project. You can see this in Kris Jenkins’ brilliant video on building a Spotify client. But it also comes with a number of built-in and add-on functions that can be accessed at the user level.
It’s these built-in and other user-level helm extensions that Irby writes about. He mentions the built-in functions
helm-apropos(apropos with fuzzy matching)helm-find-file(ido-like functionality)helm-M-x(smex-like functionality)helm-google(call google from Emacs)
and the helm-extentions
helm-dash(use Dash docsets from within Emacs)elevator(a REPL for data transformation)helm-descbinds(describe currently active bindings)helm-proectile(a Helm interface to the Projectile package)
Irby makes a good case for at least giving Helm a try. If you write your own Elisp, Helm can be especially useful but even as a user it offers at lot.