[pacomerh]

Is Emacs a monolith?. I haven't used this editor but from what I read people like it because they do everything there. Is this true?. If so, it doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Anyone has more insight of the goods and bads about Emacs.

[throwanem]

Some people do everything there. They tend to be very vocal. Others just edit text with it. They tend not to be. Most are somewhere in between. We usually try not to be too annoying.

From the perspective of usage, while Emacs has a great deal of functionality, you need not use any of it that you don't want to. Indeed, Emacs is so shy and retiring about all it can do that you really need not even know about anything beyond text editing, unless you decide you want to.

The main drawback from my perspective has been interoperability. Org mode is brilliant, but when everybody else uses Evernote or OneNote, Org can't be the only thing you use unless you want to be that guy.

And using Emacs at all makes you likely enough to be seen as "that guy" anyway that it's worth not living up to the stereotype. I wish I were joking when I say that, in adult life, I've been the object of far more unfriendly regard as a result of my choice of text editor than as a result of my homosexuality, which I've never really been at particular pains to hide. It is easier, in the modern tech industry, to be gay, than to be an Emacs user. That's not Emacs' fault or that of its users, but it is real, and perceptions matter; if you're averse to the occasional funny look, this may be worth taking into account in your consideration of whether to try the editor.

[justinhj]

I've been using emacs for over 10 years. I use it for the things it is good at, and other tools for what they are good at. In practical terms I use emacs for complex or repetitive editing tasks, org-mode for planning and lists, budget my finances using a my own emacs code, edit and work with Clojure and Common Lisp, writing blogs.

What I don't use it for:

email/browsing - the web works better for me.

Scala/Java - IntelliJ.

Python - PyStorm.

file management and git - bash shell is fine.

[pmontra]

Don't worry about to having to trash all of your tools. I only edit in emacs, I do everything else in a browser, thunderbird, terminal, etc, but I know that if I want I could do in it all the things other people described. I'm not sure if it's worth it so I don't. Furthermore it takes time to learn.