[krylon]

But having to spend a lot of time getting familiar with some tool, language or framework is not unusual in IT/Programming. Think of C++, or the .Net framework. When programming in C#, I spend at least 1/3 of my time browsing the API documentation or StackOverflow, TechNet, etc.

With emacs, as with C++ or .Net, the idea is that the effort to get familiar with the environment pays off big time after a certain point.

If somebody asks me (that happens almost never, though), my reply is to tell them about the long term-benefits of using emacs and to give both emacs and vi a try and decide what they like better. And that emacs vs. vi is not necessarily an either-or-decision. I use emacs as my main editor, but I often find myself editing config files using vi. I prefer emacs, but vi/vim is an excellent editor, too. More generally speaking, if somebody tries to frame something like the choice of editor as an either-or-question, consider if a-as-well-as-b is a valid answer, too.

[bunderbunder]

Fair, though, I think the story is a bit different with editors. Ultimately they're just a means to an end (editing code), and it's obviously true that plenty of people are able to work successfully with either of them, so you can't really fault people for just picking one to learn and going with it. Learning both intimately enough to make a serious comparison is a time-consuming prospect.

I'm also inclined to say that, unless you work in a Windows shop, there really isn't any either-or to it. vim is, at this point, so pervasive that I think the real alternatives are either "just vim" or "emacs and at least a little bit of vim".

[krylon]

> you can't really fault people for just picking one to learn and going with it.

I do not. Maybe I was not clear enough, but I made the point in another comment that I totally understand why somebody would choose vim and never look back. I used vim as my editor of choice for a couple of years, and I cannot deny that it is an excellent editor. I still use some flavor of vi on a regular basis, even on OpenBSD, where mg (a lightweight editor that copies emacs' default keybindings) is part of the base system.