I’ve often heard Emacs users pose the argument that Emacs as an Elisp interpreter does just one thing. It’s just that this single thing allows the myriad of functionality it offers. So in that sense comparing it to a terminal/console seems more apt than comparing it to a text editor. I wonder what you think of that argument.
I only used emacs for a year so I may be wrong but speaking only about how I used it and my current workflow I don’t see a difference. Looking at the usage (and not the code), my very first impression of emacs was that it’s acting as a terminal multiplexer which I was used to and so I liked this aspect. Anytime you need to do something that goes beyond the tasks of an IDE (calendar, email…) you switch window/panel (I’ve always been confused with the specific emacs terminology). That’s exactly what I’m doing with Tmux where I run neovim and call other apps with a single keybinding. Then I can freely switch from one to another, close one, recall it in the state I’ve closed it…
Again, this is related to the philosophies of emacs and neovim (i.e. do-it-all or do one thing). While neovim is “only” an IDE, emacs goes beyond, and for me this is not a negative criticism of either app. You build a tool with the coding language you need to implement some functionalities. In that sense, to compare apple to apple, emacs has to be compared to neovim coupled to a terminal multiplexer.
Hehe, that’s cool! Currently I’m really happy with Thunderbird so I don’t expect to move away anytime soon, but I’ll keep it in mind.
I used Thunderbird as well and did the switch mainly to allow me to achieve the workflow described above. I do most of my tasks in the terminal. Neomutt would certainly be one additional layer of complexity in your transition to an IDE, unless you chose to use emacs for your emails. Actually configuring emacs as an email client or going with neomutt is pretty similar. But at the end - and this is an example of the higher level of granularity I mentioned earlier - neomutt is more customizable.
Talking about the level of customization of the IDE functionality only, the plugins I use offer more configuration options in neovim as well.
Orgmode is also one (the?) big star player in emacs and neovim is trying to attract some users by developing a similar thing here or there but this is not something that would benefit to my workflow. This is maybe one of the reason why people choose emacs vs neovim and why I could quit emacs easily. Going back to the coding language, you can see that the use of lua opens new doors to the original vim. What I appreciate though is that you don’t have to implement any features if you don’t use them in neovim so I can keep my system limited to my needs. This is also seen as a bad thing by some when you start because emacs is capable of quite a lot with a fresh installation while neovim can barely open itself ;)
Overall we’re all sharing personal experience so no generalization should be extrapolated from single visions and I’m aware of my own bias and preference for singl- task, lightweight, fast tool.