[revaaron]

All the really matters is that you use what you like. If you like gedit or notepad++ that's just fine. FYI, emacs also comes with an extensive tutorial.

Personally, I used emacs and clones (mg and JASSPA MicroEmacs) for a long time- though I never really went very deep into the features. Then, I started a job where I'd be doing some sysadmin work on AIX boxes- nothing but vi and ed installed- so I figured I should sharpen my rusty vi/vim skills. I've found myself using more of the features available in VIM, as well as writing plugins myself. After you get past the initial weirdness (for folks coming from emacs and other modeless editors) I've found it easier. Less of a learning/feature curve, far fewer keystrokes, and almost no "Meta-Shift-Control-Z Ctrl-X abc" acrobatics. UI feels more modular in that I'm stringing together simple commands rather than using a command that does something specific.

Not advocating so much as trying to explain where I came from when I started using vim...

[BoppreH]

Thanks for the info.

The problem with the "use what you like" approach is that the emacs/vim learning curve are too steep. By the time I am actually using one of them I'll have spent so much that the fear of change starts to strike and I'm stuck with that editor.