Emacs vs. Eclipse vs. Vim

[Craig Allen]

I would never tell someone what editor to use in the same way I
wouldn't tell someone what religion to believe in.  Which is to say, I
would tell my kids or other trusting soul... I used emacs for years, I
was eventually convinced to start using nedit, which is quite nice.
For an IDE, which I need for GUI debugging more than all the other
sometimes-nice bells and whistles, I use WingIDE and have found it
pretty cool but not free.  In terms of using it, it's much like any
IDE these days and I think learning one is a good platform for
learning how IDEs tend to work in general, at least until something
genuinely different comes along in that space.

I would say a beginner willing to face a learning curve should make
sure they know how to edit their project outside of the IDE,
understand something about how the IDE makes their project, and so on.