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> I won't use an IDE > a regex real fast to mass update code

For things like renaming, an IDE would have a function for that, which isn't text based but symbolic. At the very least, bringing up a replace diaglog with regex functionality doesn't require any more keys to be pressed in an IDE than in emacs. Most IDEs's also support key bindings that are pretty close to Emacs or vim.

unless you use a dynamic language in which case you are shit out of luck.

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You can do the same thing in Emacs too. For example, this[1] supports that for Scala (and I think Java now as well).

[1] http://ensime.github.io/

Symbolic renames are one thing, but sometimes you really want to do textual renames. When you have names like fooFrobnicator, barFrobnicatorFactory and quuxFrobnicatorController, and you want to rename Frobnicator to Twiddler, symbolic rename won't help you.

Also, you can create quite a lot of code indirectly by few well-placed keystrokes that utilize multiple cursors / keyboard macros, regexp-replaces and things like this. Think of it as chiseling out an entire block of code at once. Spend little time mastering those features, and you can do things like this on the fly, without much conscious focus.

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