The benefits of everything being a buffer in Emacs
For me it's not the "unusual synergy" between its applications that's handy. I rarely have a situation that is significantly faster than it would be in any other editing environment. What makes it amazing to me is the uniformity of it. Everything operates the same, and the keybinds apply everywhere that they're supposed to. There are many programs that are not that way, and it's kind of jarring.<p>Also, every buffer is a blender of modes. Want a new feature or some handy functionality? Activate a mode.<p>My only argument against Emacs used to be its sluggishness, but that's no longer a thing with native compilation. So now I'm pretty sure Emacs has spoiled me, and I'll never be able to enjoy another text editor again.