LaTeX-specific support like tab completion mentioned in this thread ("hit a+tab for alpha") also doesn't work in my use cases. I use `glossaries-extra` for everything it's suitable for, so all symbols are glossary macros and not literal letters (`\alpha`...). It makes the source beautifully readable and is more in LaTeX's spirit: what you mean is what you get (`\section` vs. `\large\bfseries\sffamily`...). So instead of `\alpha` it might say `\sym{absorbtion_coefficient}`. If you ignore the necessary `\sym` macro bit, equations in source code will read like you'd say them out loud. There's no ambiguity left, what the author meant is right there, no guessing needed.
Want to change the symbol? There's only one place you'll have to change it at. Often, you cannot change e.g. `\alpha` globally (sed and friends) because such a popular symbol is probably used in multiple contexts.
Generate a nomenclature? It's one command once everything is set up, no manual `nomencl` (which is an awful, hacky, old thing) sorcery anymore. You can even print a list of all the pages a symbol, acronym, ... has been used.
And that's just `glossaries-extra`. There's `unicode-math`/`fontspec`, `tcolorbox`, `polyglossia`, `csquotes` (latex editors might helpfully auto-complete quotes (``''), but that is entirely misguided in the first place; use `csquotes`), `cleveref`, `biblatex`, `floatrow`, `caption`, ... modern LaTeX is pretty wonderful and has a lot to offer, but I found LaTeX-specific editors lag behind and their LaTeX-specific support is not useful in a lot of those cases. Plus, LaTeX Workshop is very good in its own right.