The new version of the cross platform text editor widely used on Linux represents quite a big update and includes new functionality.

Many Linux programmers tend to prefer a text editor to an IDE on the grounds that they give them a more direct feel for the code they produce - and of course speed.

Choice of text editor - specifically Emacs or vi - tends to be be a very devisive topic, more so even than IDE versus text editor - and before anyone puts me right, I'll substitute "extensible framework" in describing GNU Emacs.

GNU Emacs was created  in the 1980s by Richard Stallman as a free software alternative to the proprietary Gosling Emacs. It is based around a Lisp interpreter and has been under constant development for 30 years.

Highlights of GNU Emacs 24.4 include the fact that it now ships with a built-in web browser, M-x eww. "Emacs Web Wowser" (EWW). has previously been available separately but now the M-x eww command allows for specifying a URL or domain name. Otherwise the input is treated as a search query with the default search engine being DuckDuckGo.

Emacs 24.4 provides improved multi-monitor and fullscreen support which is another significant improvement.

Other important changes include "electric" indentation enabled by default, support for saving and restoring the state of frames and windows, pixel-based resizing for frames and windows, support for digitally signed ELisp packages, support for menus in text terminals, and a new rectangular mark mode. See the full list of changes for many more.

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