I saw this tweet:
I am experimenting with using #Emacs as my main programming environment. The last time I used emacs extensively was in college. Yes it is a bit old school but if you have to edit many files scattered in many directories, emacs is unbeatable.
— Hsin-Hao Yu (@HsinHaoYu) October 6, 2018
and my first reaction was that it made me feel old. But then I started wondering: in what sense, exactly, is Emacs “old school?”
Certainly not in the sense that it’s a relic. Emacs development is on-going and vigorous. And not in the sense that it’s underpowered and lacking features, either. Emacs is famously the “kitchen sink” editor, containing every possible feature. At one point, a kitchen sink was even used—at least informally—as its logo.
Perhaps it’s old school in the sense that it’s mostly used by gray beards. But no, younger users are constantly adopting Emacs as you can see by their questions and comments on the various forums. Maybe it’s that Emacs is not up to some modern tasks. Again no. Emacs is so extensible that you can configure it to do any possible editing task. You can even understand it as an editor construction kit. As I wrote the other day, no editor can claim to be more powerful because whatever feature they base that claim on can be added to Emacs, probably relatively easily.
So what’s the answer? Bling. Emacs doesn’t have any. I suppose if you really wanted it, you could add some chrome to Emacs but it’s beside the point and most Emacs users don’t see the need for it. To reuse my previous analogy, you don’t want a sports car for working the farm.
So I’ll embrace the “old school” label and wear it proudly as I use the most powerful editor possible even if it is a plain Jane.