[molteanu]

In short, you can add new functionality to Emacs yourself.

And just like in the world of Lisp, after you add a new functionality, it becomes indistinguishable from what you already have. That is, it looks like it has been there all along, from the start. It doesn't look like a 3rd party plugin that you need to take special precautions to install. It just blends in nicely, and naturally.

Or, to put it another way, if you learn (Emacs) Lisp and you start to tweak Emacs to your own liking, you can transform Emacs into your own personal tool, adjusted exactly the way you like it, no questions asked.

[aptidude187]

Thank you molteanu for chiming in. I would also add, that everything has the exact same interface, meaning I can access every tool in the same way, the consistency is unparalleled. For example: In VSC when I want to use the shell, I suddenly lose my vim bindings and thus drop down to the casual user mode. In Emacs I can treat the shell like any other buffer, apply all my tools and knowledge, so it's nothing foreign or something that wants to be treated differently. For instance similar point in VSC regarding the file explorer, it forces you to abandon the keyboard homerow, I can't use my vim bindings from the plugin, because the plugin is something 'foreign'. Sure you can memorise shortcuts, but it's not the same as using your vim bindings for everything, always.

[molteanu]

Yes, indeed. All the tools, all the time, always available. Something like writing a macro in Lisp. All the language is there at your disposal and it's nothing compared with C macros where you have huge limitations, it being actually a different language than C. I feel your pain with the VSC example.

"Consistency" is a good word. The result, for me at least, is that I can actually think about what I want to do with the tool and not how to use it. It gets out of the way, it does not try to fight me.

I think maybe that's one interpretation of the saying "Emacs is an operating system".