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Comment by IanCal | Hacker News Reader

> What I described is a substantial benefit of using emacs over sublime text.

I think you're _assuming_ "more control" is a substantial benefit for them.

> The OP wasn't asking why would anyone want control they were asking what are the benefits of emacs in comparison to sublime.

Right, but if you don't see a strong use case for that control it isn't a benefit. The examples you gave were of changing the UI in a way I am not interested and a way of triggering emails and slack messages when I save a file which would be actively harmful.

Giving me the ability to do something I do not want to do is not beneficial. It's like telling me a car is better because it's so modifiable I can install a Margaritaville. That would be a bad change to me so it's not selling me on the benefit of this car.

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> Giving me the ability to do something I do not want to do is not beneficial.

Expecting that an example should be tailor-made is not very beneficial, either. When I go out to buy a car, and the salesman tells me the trunk is big enough to fit a grown pig, this information is of use to me. Not because I smuggle livestock, but because this gives me a good idea of what the capacity is.

I'm not expecting a tailor made example, but as you say one that I can compare to my own situation.

Obvious things would be like vims make command - I'm not going to turn around and say a webpack example isn't relevant because I'm a python guy as I can see a direct parallel. But lots of this is standard and in major ides, or well written and tested plugins are available.

Saying I can send emails on a file save is not that useful as I can't see any reason I'd want to do that. I'd definitely not want to throw together a regulatory setup - that should not be something solved there (margharitaville comparison).

Broadly - it's not necessarily that the rest of us are missing some incredible wonderous world because we're too blind to see. It may simply be that the freedoms afforded are of little value to us.

Edit - I think I've got it sorted in my head why I don't care as much about this.

My problems are typically shared by lots of other people, and so solutions that suit me are readily available. I don't enjoy building my tools as much as I enjoy solving other problems with them.

It's the same reason I got rid of my mythtv setup and just bought something that worked to play videos. It was less flexible but did what I actually wanted better than my own setup and didn't require me to build and maintain it.

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