Revisiting the Editor Wars: The Return to Emacs

Is Emacs still in use today? This question has resurfaced in developer communities like Lobsters and Hacker News. The discussion was sparked by an article titled “Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I’m Already Daily Driving,” which outlined the changes expected in the upcoming major release of Emacs. Amid the debate, a simple yet intriguing question emerged: “Does anyone still use Emacs?” This prompted many developers to share their experiences.

30 Years of Editor History

An article published on jmmv.dev details the author’s nearly 30-year journey with text editors. The author entered the Linux world in 1997 through Caldera OpenLinux 1.1. Before that, they were accustomed to integrated development environments (IDEs) like Borland Turbo C++ and Visual Basic. After switching to Linux, they learned to use both Vim and Emacs, alternating between them based on the situation.

From the late 1990s to around 2015, the author oscillated between Vim and Emacs, preferring Emacs for long coding sessions and relying on Vim for quick edits involving multiple files, such as working with pkgsrc. This back-and-forth between the two “editor war” giants was a common experience for many developers of that era.

The Shift to VSCode and IntelliJ

However, dissatisfaction with the weak language integration in these traditional editors led the author to explore more modern alternatives. They experimented with editors like Atom and Brackets—both of which have since been discontinued—but found them overly feature-laden and cumbersome to use.

The turning point came in 2015 with the release of Visual Studio Code (VSCode). The author appreciated VSCode’s modern interface, its relatively lightweight design, and its configuration system based on JSON files. Particularly appealing was its seamless integration with the Language Server Protocol (LSP), which significantly improved coding efficiency in languages like Go and Rust through features like code completion and real-time error highlighting. The author became deeply invested in VSCode, gradually abandoning Emacs.

During this period, while working at Google on Bazel (a Java project), the author also found IntelliJ to be a natural choice. Although they attempted Java development with Emacs, they acknowledged that IntelliJ’s advanced refactoring and debugging features far outperformed Emacs in this area.

Returning to Emacs

Despite their deep engagement with VSCode and IntelliJ, the author now declares that they have “started using Emacs again.” Why return to Emacs after such a long break? The author attributes their decision to specific features of Emacs that they describe as giving them “superpowers.” While the original article promises to reveal more details in a subsequent post, it hints that Emacs’s extensibility, customizable key bindings, and unparalleled text manipulation capabilities make it superior for certain workflows. These viewpoints are commonly echoed by long-time Emacs users.

The Developer Community’s Perspective

In a thread on Hacker News, numerous developers shared why they continue to use Emacs today. Key reasons include Org-mode for its seamless integration of task management and document creation, Magit for its superior Git functionality, and the near-limitless customization potential offered by Emacs Lisp. On the other hand, those who have transitioned to VSCode often cite its robust default support for LSP, built-in debugger integration, and extensive ecosystem of extensions as deciding factors.

The Impact of Emacs 31

Emacs 31 is set to bring significant improvements, including enhanced native compilation, more efficient garbage collection, and better support for Wayland. These upgrades are expected to improve startup speed, responsiveness, and compatibility with modern desktop environments. Despite its long history, Emacs development remains active, and its community shows no signs of shrinking.

Editorial Opinion

In the short term, the release of Emacs 31 is likely to prompt some developers who had moved away from Emacs to reevaluate its capabilities. Users who rely on unique features like Org-mode and Magit, which offer unparalleled efficiency in specific workflows, may find themselves drawn back to Emacs.

From a long-term perspective, the text editor ecosystem appears to be evolving from an era of “one editor for everything” to a more diverse approach where developers choose tools based on specific tasks and personal preferences. Emacs, with its high degree of customizability and sustainability, is well-positioned to serve as a niche tool for specialized workflows. Meanwhile, VSCode and JetBrains IDEs are expected to continue dominating as all-purpose development environments.

In our editorial view, the choice of an editor should not be a matter of dogma but rather a pragmatic decision based on tasks and individual work styles. The return to Emacs is not merely a nostalgic trend; it underscores the unique value that Emacs offers for workflows requiring complex text manipulation, which modern IDEs cannot fully replicate.

References

• Lobsters — Published on 2026-06-20
• Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I’m Already Daily Driving — The original article that sparked the discussion