There already exists better power tools for power users, that are easy to use and easy to customize, yet still more powerful than Emacs. It's a common misconception that if it's arbitrarily hard to understand, it must be something for power users. Bad design is not a feature.
Re:Making Emacs Popular Again (2020)
by alex_smart on Thursday November 04, 2021 @01:48PM
(#29110351)
>There already exists better power tools for power users, that are easy to use and easy to customize, yet still more powerful than Emacs.
And what tools would that be?
“If you need a dedicated tutorial for a text editor it's a great sign that something is very wrong with its design, particularly concerning discoverability.”
I don’t agree. If it was a mass-market product for users who just wants something convenient, then I would agree. Those users are probably better served by other applications. (Word, Evernote, OneNote, Notepad++ etc etc) But Emacs is a power tool for power user. Therefore I think it’s okay that it needs a tutorial to get started. You need to invest some time to learn in. That will, in my experience, pay off greatly in the long run.
Let’s take an example from another domain:
Suppose someone wants to get started with 3D Graphics. I’m pretty sure software like Blender and Maya also needs some kind of tutorial in order to be useful.