[ob]

I learned emacs first and became reasonably proficient in it. Some years ago, I joined a company where most people used vi. I saw it as an opportunity to use vi (also vim) and I already knew a bit of vi from editing unix config files.

I spent almost 3 years working exclusively in vi. I got used to it enough to handcraft my own .vimrc file, use multiple buffers, integrate with ctags, etc etc. I think I was reasonably proficient in vim at that time.

At around that time, I did a coding project with a friend who was an emacs user and when I say him code I thought to myself "Wow, he flies!". That day I dumped vi and went back to emacs. I've never looked back.

Emacs' macros, different modes, integration, shells, etc, etc, let you deal with all sorts of systems in a pleasant way. Learning emacs is a much better investment than vim.

[jchiu1106]

I hear you. My point is either vim or emacs is a much better choice than those "beginner-friendly" editors that the op would recommend to new devs. Simple: no pain, no gain. Both vim and emacs are painful enough for most people to learn, but the reward is substantial and long-lasting.

Side note: I think I'd love emacs if I hadn't learned vim first. Having a real programming language (elisp) for configuration and extension is nice.

[kstrauser]

Sure, but for the record, Sublime isn't exactly a "beginner-friendly" editor in the "click and drool sense". It offers menus for common operations, but I think of it more as Emacs But With Python than something I'd hand to a new user.

[MetaCosm]

... you should read up on the new hotness in emacs, finally making people really proficient editors -- it is called "EVIL" mode, it is taking the emacs community by storm.

Just hit 1.0 as well.