It really is amazing for programming. I gave VS Code(ium) a chance as I hadnt used it in a while, and it feels like a frustrating black box compared to Emacs.

My favorite feature is Emacs being entirely self documenting, it makes it SO much easier to troubleshoot issues, make refinements, or just understand what's going on in your environment.

Orginally I used Doom Emacs, but, although being wonderful to work in, wasn't as easily understandable to me. I recommend anyone wanting to start an vanilla Emacs config starts here.

Exemplary youtube playlist by System Crafters that makes creating your emacs config from scratch not only more palatable, but arguably trivial. (At least up to the point he goes in the series).