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> Here is where I'll argue that the main advantage of the big IDEs are that they have focused on UX for years.

You say that, but somehow I still find the UX of every IDE I've tried to be lacking. I much prefer the UX of Emacs.

You spent (likely) years learning Emacs. How much time did you spend learning each of those IDEs you've tried?

You have to realize that psychologically: you like things you're familiar with, and dislike things you're unfamiliar with. That's how top-40 radio works. That's why everybody bitches over every new software update, even when the new version is provably better.

So of course you like the thing you spent years with over the thing you tried to learn for a week and a half then gave up on because Emacs is better. That has nothing to do with UX.

I've spent years in Eclipse as well (and still use it every day at work for Java stuff), and I appreciate a lot of the functionality it offers, but I definitely find the UX lacking. It's klunky. Yes, it's maybe more discoverable (although, at least in the case of Ecipse, that's debatable) and some of the keybindings are probably more familiar to most people, but I find that even though Emacs has a bit of a learning curve, once you've gotten past that, the experience of actually using it is very fluid and productive.

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