This argument makes me smile as someone who is old enough to remember when Emacs stood for "eight megabytes and constantly swapping".

The old GNU mentality of ignoring performance optimization because computer hardware would catch up eventually actually did pay off.

Same here ;) But now there's "8 GB and constantly swapping": Eclipse! I logged once on a dev server to test something, it was slow and I checked what was going on. On this 64 GB machine, 8 Eclipse users, each Eclipse using a tad over 8 GB, led to significant swapping. What a world!

It also has a consistent interface that YOU control yourself. Downside is you need an IQ of at least 95 to use it.

Vscode is super easy to configure yourself. I'd argue probably easier to customize fully than emacs for the average user. That's the whole point of using it versus a fully fledged opinionated IDE.

The average user can barely hit the space bar with their forehead. Creating programming tools designed for the average user will always be a study in mediocrity.

Configuring emacs isn't a test of intelligence, it's a test of investment. I wish the mindset that conflates intelligence and investment would go away.

Software is going to continue to play a bigger influence on everyones life. The majority of this software is going to be written by engineers of average intelligence. Having tools that are easier for everyone to use will make your life better down the line too.

It's likely the same kind of person that conflates knowledge with intelligence as well.

Sigh. This tired argument is trot out again and again, and everyone draws an arbitrary line in the sand and calls it objective.

Do you hand roll your own assembly? Do you import any libraries or write everything from scratch? Do you drive a manual or automatic?

The only truth in this world is that we all have a finite amount of time in it, and as an individual only you can decide on the allocation.

Also it's not the tool, it's what you do with it.

Learn emacs once and you're done - your customizations will stick around for years, decades. With the proprietary MS solution, you have no guarantee of this.

Le sigh, I guess some people want to be subject to the whims of Redmond for life.