This meme really needs to die.
I use emacs a lot, but the attitude that it's not just a text editor leads people to accept UX mediocrity.
Emacs has fallen behind VS Code in many ways, including text editing.
- VS Code Org Mode[1] has maybe 2% of the features of Org for Emacs.
- The only VS Code-based mail client I've ever found is VSCode Mail Client[1], which was developed during a single month and then abandoned.
VS Code is clearly for normies who use WYSIWYG word processors, webmail, etc. Suggesting that VS Code has surpassed Emacs for non-coding activities is laughable.
Hey, me too. Or at least, I used to. I've done most of those things but you know what? There are specialty tools that do almost everything better than emacs does it.
Emacs calendar is inferior to Google calendar, thunderbird, or even Apple's calendar app.
Org mode spreadsheets pale in comparison to libre office and excel.
Emacs's email handling is straight up dog shit.
Doing simple calculations is better/easier in a python or sbcl repl than am emacs buffer.
Generation of static sites is easier, more flexible, and generally better dx with a shell script.
Actually writing text is better in vscode. It's more performant, for starters. Imagine a program in 2024 that locks up the GUI if you make a network request. Oh wait that's emacs. Embarrassing.
I've used emacs since the early 2000s and I am not afraid to admit VS Code is a better text editor than emacs.
I'd rather use specialized tools for each task, maybe gluing them together with python or bash if needed.