Don't get me wrong, I use and love emacs, but I think it's a little silly to learn a new editor just because Steve Yegge says that all the "world changing" developers use it. As with any tool, pick the editor that that
1) is suitable for your task
2) you are comfortable with.
Doesn't get any simpler than that.
I'm learning emacs also, but I have been using it since perhaps 1990. Steve's article has a lot of good stuff in it.<p>However, there is one world-changing programmer that I know of (and I would guess there are likely others) that is rumored to have used VI and not emacs. As I understand it, Paul Graham used (uses?) VI and not emacs. Oh, another is Cutler, writer of more OS systems than most of us have ever used: RSTS-11, Vax VMS, and Windows NT. He uses Slick Edit. I am sure the list goes on. Where I work, primary editors include Pico, Textmate, Emacs, vim, sublime.<p>Presumably you are here to build amazing stuff, and unless your Amazing Stuff is a world-beating editor, your editor is not your job. So don't get too hung up on the editor. Lots of good ones out there.