RE: Emacs users a dying breed?

[Doug Lewan]

No, emacs users are not a dying breed.
Well, emacs is not an endangered species; it exceeds every potential competitor 
in too many ways.

Here are a few points.

1. It is ubiquitous. (This is largely true of all Free Software.)
   No matter what platform I work on emacs is there.
   In the last 10 years I've had the chance to work on 
       • 3 flavors of Solaris
       • 2 flavors of HP-UX
       • AIX
       • CYGWIN
       • Windows Vista and Windows 7
   About 10 years ago I counted the different OSes and versions thereof
   where emacs ran and I think it was over 200.
   Nothing non-Free can match that.

2. It's an editor for just about everything you need.
   A quick glance in lisp/progmodes gets about 80 programming languages.
   There's also LaTex, HTML, etc., etc.
   (Even troff! Hey! It's free to ship support code. Why not do it?)

3. It's comes with a zillion application.
   Calendar, organizers, a file manager, etc.

4. There are a zillion more applications freely available too.

5. It's consistent.¹
   If I change version control systems my UI doesn't change.
   When I change debuggers my UI doesn't change.
   When I want help for another Free application, Info works just the same.

6. The help is integrated.
   I don't mean when you click on "Help"
   you get help in a different documentation system.
   (A browser, Word, whatever. That's not integration.)
   You get it right there.
   No change. No moving focus. No distraction with the mouse.

7. It's its own development environment.
   As with Help, it's fully integrated.²

8. And it's the most portable working/development environment ever.
   If you write an application for emacs on Windows,
   it'll still run on AIX.

9. To incorporate all of the above:
   It's hardly just an editor -- it's an operating system.
   Windows, HP-UX, Linux, whatever is your BIOS if you're an emacs user.
   Using it makes you one of the most flexible, adaptable people
   in the computer world by removing the unnecessary distractions
   that our industry calls "innovation" (no matter how trivial they are).

Thank you for your time.

I know I've missed much.
The flexibility and responsiveness of the development community.
International support.
Much, much more. Please add.

________________________________________________________________
¹It's a little clunky, but wildly consistent.
I'd rather have clunky consistency than 10 super-modern variations
all of which are slightly different.
If you're going to do something differently,
then please, /please/, PLEASE do it much, much better.
Give me a big reason to want your difference.

²OK, I admit it. To say that emacs Lisp is integrated with emacs
is not just and understatement, it's upside down.