[Swizec]

I just find it funny that replacing "Atom" with "Emacs" in your argument doesn't feel out of place at all.

Well, Emacs Lisp might be less newcomer friendly and it's not a webapp. But still, thriving ecosystem - check, accessible to developers - check, huge number of packages - check, runs everywhere - check.

[hamburglar]

The thing Atom has which Emacs doesn't is that it's approachable even if you don't appreciate all the customization and the rich ecosystem. You can sit down with Atom and just explore it like you would any other GUI text editor, and it pretty much behaves exactly like you'd expect without having to learn any obscure commands or shortcuts. You can learn the commands and shortcuts (and explore the ecosystem) as you settle in.

I'm primarily a vim user and I still prefer vim to Atom, but within a day or two of seriously trying out Atom, I was probably up to speed with 90% of the core functionality I use in vim on a day to day basis. That last 10% is a bit of a killer, though. :)

[willismichael]

That last 10%... same reason I keep going back to emacs after trying a half dozen other editors that more or less promised to be "the one".

[jshen]

atom works well out of the box. Emacs ... not so much.

[baddox]

How often do most developers set up a new environment? For me, it's nowhere near enough for me to care at all whether my main development tool "works out of the box."

[jshen]

I used emacs for years and I spent far too much time fiddling with it to get it to the place of something like atom.