Can someone :help me?

If you're curious, Emacs does all this—and more—with various C-h commands. If you want to see a full list of these, start with

    C-h ?

Here are my favorites:

If you want to see a specific keybinding, like checking what C-w is bound to:

    C-h k C-w

If you want to see the documentation for a function:

    C-h f function-name

If you want to see details about your current mode:

    C-h m

This is incredibly useful because it lists all the mode-specific keybindings. That's how I learn how to use new modes!

If you want to see or interact with a variable:

    C-h v

If you want to see something where you remember just part of the name:

    C-h a *regexp*

(a stands for "apropos")

If you want to see the incredibly detailed manual for Emacs or all of the info manuals on your computer:

    C-h r
    C-h i

If you want to see info about your input mode (how do I type ℕ in TeX-input-mode?):

    C-h I

Actually, for that one, I have another handy trick: copy and paste an ℕ into your buffer, go over it and use

    C-u C-x =

which brings up detailed information about the given character... including how to type it in your current input mode (if applicable). This also includes useful info like its Unicode designation and category.

I've found all of these tricks exceptionally helpful when learning more about Emacs. They also help me overcome my fear of memorization: its so easy to look stuff up, I don't have to bother. Then, if I use something enough, I remember it without especially effort. It's like a cache in my mind.

I'm sure I would be. I actually like emacs very much, and used to use it in my uni days. These days though, I like the modal way of editing more.

I think emacs' documentation does come close but I still think Vim's help is much more easy to use and to search for. For example, a new user coming to emacs can't search for help on C-x C-f by invoking C-h C-x C-f

Not to start with no. But as I started to become familiar with Vim enough, I realized I reached for :h more than go search google, and for the most part, I found what I was looking for in Vim's help pretty easily and much faster than google. Vim's help is easy enough to use that you can `:helpgrep topic` or just `:help top` to list all the help topics and go from there.

Sure you can achieve the same thing by searching online. However, I believe that reading Vim's help motivates you to learn more commands and be more efficient with it. There's so many things in `:h motion.txt` that online articles don't mention and I would probably never come across them.

Similarly, with Git, I did learn to add, commit push but then I learned to reach for `git help topicname` if I want some documentation on that topic name.

The documentation is so good, you need a beautifully crafted website with english sentences, standard typography / web styles, and acommpanying visual diagrams...simply to learn how to use the "help" feature.

> No other software product that I've ever come across or used has had a better documentation.

Vim requires so much documentation just to be usable. There is no GUI to hint at how to do anything. No toolbars, no application menus, no context menus or buttons. Vim's documentation is probably somewhat responsible for its popularity. I've never not found something I needed in Vim's documentation.