1/ Yet another thread on Emacs. One of the most important points in the life of an Emacs "user" (the quotes will become clear in a moment) is the moment where you realise that Emacs is not an editor but a framework to build editors, which happens to have a sample for you to try.
2/ I mean, most of us know this, but even then, its difficult to appreciate its logical consequences. Anyway, lets do a simple example for those not in the know. Say I start a project in VS Code, and create a new class. It prompts me to install extensions, and stuff happens... 
3/ Then I go back to my class and if by magic, my environment is entirely configured to use C#. Now, as a regular developer I don't even bother distinguishing the different services the environment is giving me - I don't really care, all I care about is that my C# needs are met.
4/ Not lets imagine you do the same thing on Emacs. The first and most important distinction is, "Vanilla Emacs" is not the Emacs any Emacs "users" uses. But you are to to know that, of course. So you have a very spartan, --nodepad like experience.
5/ Now, of course, everyone will say - "but you installed extensions in VS Code! You must do the same for Emacs, to compare like with like!" And this, I say, is where we start to miss the point. The Emacs "extensions" are not extensions in the same sense VS Code has extensions.
6/ And an Emacs "user" is not really a user as we know. All Emacs "users" must be, by necessity, developers of Emacs. There is just no getting away from it. If you try (and I did for many years) you will have a very painful experience, and you will only be scratching its surface.
7/ On Emacs, you need to decompose that VS Code screen into many, many different components (syntax highlighting, LSP server, completion framework, etc.), all of which with many, many options which require configuring and experimenting with. And yes, there is a package manager.
8/ But its only useful if you know what your are looking for. In the hands of a more experienced Emacs user, of course, its extremely useful. But really, you only begin to appreciate Emacs' power once you have built some kind of mastery over the framework and that takes time.
9/ "OK, fine, you may say. Once you finally know what you are doing, you get to do what I can do with VS Code. And yes, your environment looks lovely, but it just seems like a *lot of work* just to get to the starting point I get with other editors."
10/ True; but this is where you get to the moment of enlightenment, to the "why" you become an Emacs developer. Once you know the framework, you start to apply it to _all_ text editing tasks. Turns out most developers work is editing, in one way or another...
11/ But that would require a whole new thread. Next time, on Emacs rants :-)
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