Of all the arguments for the author to pick, the "archaic" editor issue is probably the most insignificant/ most misunderstood. There is no arguing (at least in my little world) that using tools like vi/ emacs make you a FAR better programmer than hand holding IDE's like VS. When you need to make vi/ emacs do something for you, a knowledge not only of the programming process, but also the inner workings of the editor must be understood. There is really no better way to expand knowledge than being forced to do things for yourself. Perhaps one could make an argument for productivity (in regards to things like VS), but I believe that a skilled vi/ emacs user will be more productive in many languages, whereas most Microsoft coders live in a world of .Net, or Java coders live in a world of Java.

Disclaimer: Church of Emacs