Invisible wrote:
> OK, so somebody had to ask...
> 
> What is it, exactly, that makes Emacs so fantastic? What does it 
> actually *do* beyond being a text editor?
> 
> (I mean, aside from the obvious fact that "Emacs" is actually just a 
> Lisp interpretter that defaults to running a text editor application 
> written in Lisp...)
> 
> Presumably there is a way of making Emacs read the content of a text 
> file, use the various keys on the keyboard to edit that text, and save 
> the result. But hey, Notepad can do that too! So what is it that Emacs 
> does that's so awesom? What can it do that Notepad can't?

Customizable
Extensible/Programmable
Ported to many platforms
Internationalization
Runs in both text terminals and GUI environments
Many editing modes
Self documenting with built in tutorial
Detailed and well written manulas
Free and open source

AFAIK notepad is/has none of the above.

Try it for a while - and I bet you won't regret it.

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

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