Emacs's greatness lies somewhere else. Its extensibility is unmatched. IMO there's no other software product ever been created that can be extended like Emacs.
I'm sure if given enough resources and motivation, it's possible to build superb support for the modern programming languages. For example, you wouldn't claim that Intellij/VSCode/Sublime/Atom has better support for Erlang, for OCaml, for Lisp, for LaTeX, would you?
Emacs evolves slowly. Things take time. And yes, there are always IDEs that do things [slightly] better. At a given moment. Remember, though Emacs outlived many trendy IDEs. Relatively not too long ago IDEs like C++ Builder and Delphi Builder, Eclipse, NetBeans were quite popular. And they did have some remarkable features that Emacs didn't. Do you see any HN posts about those anymore?
Now check, for example, Github Language Stats¹ and find there emacs-lisp. Isn't it surprising to see it somewhere in the middle of the list? Isn't it surprising that it made into that list at all? Remember that it is not a general-purpose language; it is not used in the enterprise; it is not used in the game industry; not suitable for writing mobile apps or web pages. And it also a pretty concise language, it's a Lisp. But there's a lot of it on GitHub alone. Who are these people? Who writes all that code? And how the heck they keep doing it - none of them ever have gotten paid for it, aside from some tiny voluntary contributions and hugely successful Kickstarter campaign for Magit.
If a programming language stays relevant for long enough, people eventually will build emacs packages for it, and they'll keep improving them. But for a proprietary IDE, if it doesn't have a feature you like - you have no other option but to submit a request and wait. Sometimes you have to wait indefinitely.
> People who've been using only Emacs for the last 20 years are in no position to comment on IDEs
I moved to Emacs after almost 20 years of using IDEs. If I am still programming 20 years from now, I'm sure it will be in Emacs.
I'm sure if given enough resources and motivation, it's possible to build superb support for the modern programming languages. For example, you wouldn't claim that Intellij/VSCode/Sublime/Atom has better support for Erlang, for OCaml, for Lisp, for LaTeX, would you?
Emacs evolves slowly. Things take time. And yes, there are always IDEs that do things [slightly] better. At a given moment. Remember, though Emacs outlived many trendy IDEs. Relatively not too long ago IDEs like C++ Builder and Delphi Builder, Eclipse, NetBeans were quite popular. And they did have some remarkable features that Emacs didn't. Do you see any HN posts about those anymore?
Now check, for example, Github Language Stats¹ and find there emacs-lisp. Isn't it surprising to see it somewhere in the middle of the list? Isn't it surprising that it made into that list at all? Remember that it is not a general-purpose language; it is not used in the enterprise; it is not used in the game industry; not suitable for writing mobile apps or web pages. And it also a pretty concise language, it's a Lisp. But there's a lot of it on GitHub alone. Who are these people? Who writes all that code? And how the heck they keep doing it - none of them ever have gotten paid for it, aside from some tiny voluntary contributions and hugely successful Kickstarter campaign for Magit.
If a programming language stays relevant for long enough, people eventually will build emacs packages for it, and they'll keep improving them. But for a proprietary IDE, if it doesn't have a feature you like - you have no other option but to submit a request and wait. Sometimes you have to wait indefinitely.
> People who've been using only Emacs for the last 20 years are in no position to comment on IDEs
I moved to Emacs after almost 20 years of using IDEs. If I am still programming 20 years from now, I'm sure it will be in Emacs.
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* ¹ https://madnight.github.io/githut