| > is it worth it? Absolutely! ---
When I got back into emacs I dedicated two weeks to re-learn it after years of not using it. I watched/read a couple of tutorials for setting up a python development environment - which happened to be one of my drivers since I hadn't found a decent python editor. I read through the built in tutorial once, and referenced it a few times in the following days as I was editing. I had coding to do, but I did manage to slim down my task list to account for the potential of lost productivity. For emacs M-x describe-mode was very helpful in getting a list of chords/hotkeys, but the ones that I really needed to develop a memory for were navigation/search/save/exit. It probably was the full two weeks before I was comfortable. Now I get into other environments and I wonder how people deal with how slow things are or how you are supposed to remain focused when you have to use your mouse all the time. My favorite plugin is yasnippet. Quick and easy templates for repetitive tasks with multiple stop points and dynamic content. After that, any effort is simply in googling what you need your editor to do. If it's not built in, somebody has already wrote something for it 90% of the time. |
But each of those editors requires time to really learn, just like vi and emacs (formerly I was proficient in them too). Many people look at Visual Studio for example, see the Solution Explorer and just go "well, that must be the only way to open a file"...um, no.