Well, I'm usually using gvim (the Gtk+/GUI version of the Vim programmer’s editor) for coding and for writing purely-Latin texts. For bidirectional (mixed Hebrew+Latin / etc.) texts, I sometimes use Kate instead, with a fallback on gedit. Sometimes, I use “vim” (the console version) or neovim's nvim for quick edits or when I cannot or would prefer not to use a GUI editor.

The reasons I am using gvim instead of vim, are:

1. Because many terminal emulators on Linux, including Konsole which is my preferred one, mess up with the Hebrew/Latin bidirectionality too much (enough to confuse vim).

2. Because the syntax highlighting looks nicer there.

3. Because the mouse support is better.

4. Because I like and use the menubar.

5. Because Unicode characters are often displayed better.

6. Because it does not start much slower than Vim.

If the console-based Vim works for you - feel free to use it.

Regarding Emacs: from what I know, it should be a fine text editor, but I could never get used to it, so that’s not what I’m using. I was told about the Evil mode which provides partial Vim compatibility, but I didn’t try it, in part because I’m now using quite a lot of Vim extensions written in vimscript and in Vim’s extension languages, which are not supported by Evil.