Someone typed:
> Today, I've used it for the first time in my life, and to be honest, I
> wasn't overly impressed with it.

Unfortunately, it takes weeks - and some would say years - to be able
to "know" emacs[5] a bit. But once you're into it, it can help you a LOT
and trust me: emacs is  really  powerful.

I write LaTeX[1], HTML, Java[2] and Shellscripts with emacs and I cannot
think of any IDE, where it's more comfortably.

And: forget the menu bar. There are thousands of things, that are NOT
accessible by the menues anyway.

For a first lookaround, do the emacs tutorial (which definately is
accessible via the menues ;-).

The other widely used editor for professional use is vi in its various
branches like vim[3]. You will be disappointed by vim too, if you don't
spend much time learning it.

Everybody should have at least one editor, that he understands. And the
minimum requirements an editor should have are nicely shown here[4].

> I don't think it gets even close to the
> comfort and complexity of Chami's HTML-Kit, but maybe I should give it
> more time.

Sorry. I do not know Chami's HTML-Kit yet but it never crossed my way.
But I guess it's not as sophisticated as vim or emacs though bouth of
them are developed for at least twenty years or so ...

Once upon a long time ago, I used a Microsoft-OS myself and there was a
HTML-editor that was almost as comfortably as emacs and its name was
HomeSite but it was not avaliable for free :-(


But professionals use either vim or emacs (two religions) and the
advantage of them is, that (Linux-) Tools are able to integrate your
editor of choice. So you got the power in _every_ application.

*****************************************************************
So: choose (at least) one you prefer, _learn_ it and stick to it.
*****************************************************************

                                                        Karl Voit


[1] AucTeX-mode, preview-LaTeX, X-Symbol, ispell-minor-mode
[2] jde, speedbar
[3] http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/vi/
[4] http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/linux/tag/lt5/vortraege/detail.html?index=84
[5] http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/