 A few months ago, I did a video on EMEX and that video was done after a few weeks of actually using EMEX as a replacement for VIM. And I had thoughts on it and the underlying conclusion that I had or the overwhelming conclusion that I had was that EMEX is just not for me. And one of the biggest reasons was that there was just too many features there that I didn't use. And I don't think that I articulated the problem all that well. Especially because I still get tons of comments, especially on that one video where I listed the top five GUI text editors. And everyone was like, why didn't you include EMEX on this? And my response to several people was EMEX is not a text editor. It's an operating system. And that's what I want to talk about today because I still have a lot of people who are asking me why I haven't given EMEX a fair shake. And it's probably true that I haven't given it a fair chance to actually be my daily driver because when I used it, I really did just use it as a replacement for VIM, which as a replacement for VIM, it's fine, but it has all this other stuff that goes along with it. And that is something that bothers me. So my biggest problem with EMEX isn't that it's a bad replacement for VIM. It's that it's bloated. And I don't like to use the word bloat because I don't really care about bloat as, you know, all the Linux bros would probably say, you know, talk about it. But I really do feel that way with EMEX. Now I know what the EMEX guys are going to say, EMEX isn't bloated. It's just a programming language. It's just a Lisp interpreter or whatever it's called. And sure, technologically, that's true. It's true that all EMEX is a Lisp or Elisp interpreter. That's what it does. And it has a whole bunch of programs built on top of that functionality. And that's where you get me is because what you're really talking about here, when you talk about EMEX, most people aren't talking about the fact that it's a Lisp interpreter. They're talking about the fact that it has all this functionality. So it's exactly what the argument is about Linux. When you really talk about when someone says Linux, they're not really talking about the kernel, even though that's specifically what Linux refers to really what they're talking about is GNU slash Linux. And that encompasses everything that makes up a Linux system, really, but nobody says GNU slash Linux, they just say Linux. And when somebody comes up to me and says, you use Linux, right, I know what they're talking about, right? It doesn't confuse me. It doesn't make me think, well, you know, technically I use the Linux kernel, but I also use the GNU utilities and all this stuff. But I know that they're talking about the whole kitten caboodle. It's the same thing with EMEX, when someone says, hey, you use EMEX, they're not talking about the ELisp interpreter, they're talking about the whole kitten caboodle, the stuff that comes on top of it, the email client, the games, the, the torrent client, all this stuff that just is there. Now a lot of stuff isn't there by default, even though some of it is. The point is, is that it is possible to do just a ton of stuff in EMEX. And when someone tells you or asks you do you use EMEX, you're talking about all of it. And really, when it comes down to it, that's my biggest problem is that it's not just one thing, as the EMEX guys likes to tell me, it's a ton of different stuff. And it feels bloated. In addition to just being a text editor, EMEX also has a terminal emulator baked inside of it. It also has games baked inside of it. It also has a Git client baked inside of it. It has a password manager baked inside of it. It has a to do list baked inside of it. I could go on and on and on and on. It literally has just a ton of stuff. Now a lot of that stuff ties into the functionality of being a like a IDE. But the point is, is that that stuff is still there. It's in a conglomeration of just many, many things. So when someone argues that EMEX is just an elisp interpreter, it doesn't fly with me because all that stuff is there. Now some of it's not there by default, completely there. Like if you download Doom EMEX and you want to get all this stuff in there, you have to uncomment something and rebuild it in order to actually get that package to be functional. But the point is, is that it's there. It's kind of like Vim plugins, but a little worse in my opinion, because like you can't, as far as I know, make Vim have games, because like you can't have Tetris inside of them. Maybe it'd be cool if he could, I don't know. But I don't, I'm assuming that there's no way to actually have a Tetris game inside of them. It's just not something that is there. And by default, EMEX has that. Now, I know I'm kind of harping about the games, but that's the, that's the oddest thing that sticks out every time I think of EMEX is that, why does this have so much stuff in it? I'm already using an operating system. I don't need to use another embedded operating system inside of my operating system. It's like, I use Linux, it does stuff, and EMEX just doesn't really fit in with my idea of like the UNIX philosophy. Like for the most part, I don't give a crap about the UNIX philosophy, but the EMEX fanboys will always tell you that the EMEX really is the best example of the UNIX philosophy, because all it is is an EMEX interpreter. That's all it does. It does one thing. It does it well. And again, technologically, that's true. But when you look at it as a whole, just like you look at Linux as a whole. And when I say Linux, I mean GNU slash Linux. It does way more than that. And some of the stuff is a conglomeration of stuff that doesn't really make sense. It feels like it's literally trying to do everything. Like they make a window manager based on EMEX that people use EXWM. I don't know whether or not it's good or not, never tried it, but it's there. And that is a great example of why I don't like EMEX is because it literally tries to replace every single thing. Now, the reason why I thought about this topic was that I was going through DT's old videos today, and I saw this video here, replacing all of my programs with EMEX. And that's exactly the reason why I don't use EMEX. I don't want to replace all my programs with EMEX. Now, nobody says I have to, obviously, but the point is, is that you can and that's the reason why I don't do it is because I don't want to replace my terminal with EMEX. I don't want to replace my word processor with EMEX. Like I don't use word processor anymore, but I don't really want to have my terminal and all that stuff all together in one place. Maybe that's appealing to some people, having all of your email client right there inside of your program that you use for everything else. Maybe that's something that they're interested in. I don't really consider that something that is useful for my workflow. Now, there's a part of me that realizes that I'm being hypocritical here because I try to get everything in my workflow to happen inside of the terminal. So if we consider EMEX analogous to the terminal itself, which it's not really, but if we could kind of think about it that way, then EMEX makes more sense and it makes me look a lot worse because I do go through and try to make all of my programs fit inside of a terminal workflow. I've started doing all my writing in Vim. I do as much as my file management inside of a file like Ranger or something. I try to spend as much as my time inside of a terminal. So from that way of looking at it, you can kind of see where the EMEX guys come from and that they want to spend all their time in this one program. I want to spend all my time in a terminal. It's kind of the same thing. All that being said, EMEX is still not for me. And my biggest issue with all of this is that I still get comments and stuff about trying to get me to use EMEX. So I wanted to make this video about why I don't use EMEX. Even if some of it doesn't really make all that much sense to everybody, in my mind, in my little brain, EMEX does too much stuff and it just confuses me. At the end of the day, EMEX just is not for me. And I wanted to make a video about why it's not for me, even though I've talked about it a few times before. So that is it for this video. I'm sure that in the comments, I will have several people asking me or telling me that I'm wrong. And that's fine because, I mean, at the end of the day, you use what you like to use, right? That's the whole point of Linux, the whole point of open source. If you like EMEX, if you don't care that it has all this extra stuff, maybe you'll even like that it has all this extra stuff. Good for you. Congratulations. You found something that is really nice. I'm the same way. Like I said, with the terminal, like I do all my work in the terminal. So that's good for me. That's what makes Linux great. So comments in the comment section below makes you hit the like and subscribe button. I really do appreciate everybody who's done that. We're getting really, really close to 10,000 subscribers. So if you haven't hit the subscribe button, please do so. It really does help. You can follow me on Twitter at the next cast. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Linux cast before I go. I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons. Siddha Devon, Patrick O'Fredd, Maglenn, Jackson, I'm Touls, Steve A, Sabrina, Nix, Garrick, Samuel, Mitchell, ArtCenter, CarbonData, Jeremy, Sean, Odin, Martin, Andy, Merrick, Kamp, Joshua Lee, D-Dog, Peter A, Crucible, Dark, Vendor Six, Vlad A, and Primus. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time.