Why Emacs Is the Best: 10 Key Advantages

The article discusses the advantages of using Emacs as a text editor, highlighting its extensive features and customization capabilities. The author, Tristan de Cacqueray, shares his personal experience of setting up Emacs in a lightweight terminal environment, emphasizing its efficiency in managing projects, code contributions, and various text-based tasks. Key features include a robust completion framework that utilizes fuzzy matching, buffer management for quick file access, and a modular text completion system called Company. Emacs's extensibility through Elisp allows users to customize their environment significantly. The article also covers Emacs's compilation mode, language server integration via Eglot, and the ability to run shell commands within the editor. Other notable features include Magit for Git management, Org mode for task organization, and Notmuch for email handling. The author recently upgraded to Emacs 30, noting improvements and some minor issues encountered during the transition. He concludes by comparing Emacs favorably against alternatives like Vim and Eclipse, encouraging readers to explore its capabilities and consider its integration with AI workflows.

- Emacs offers a highly customizable and efficient text editing environment.

- Key features include a powerful completion framework, buffer management, and modular text completion.

- The extensibility through Elisp allows for significant personalization of the editor.

- Emacs integrates well with tools for version control, task management, and email handling.

- The author encourages users to explore Emacs and its potential for enhancing productivity.