I didn't gain the ability to use the mouse to interact with Emacs till 2010 because before then graphical Emacs on Linux had bit-mapped text that I hated to look at (the main issue's being that it clashed horribly with the text in all the other apps I was using, including my browser). When text rendering in graphical Emacs improved and I started being able to use the mouse in Emacs, I realized I had made a big mistake in not taking the trouble to acquire the ability to use the mouse in Emacs earlier: the MacOS port (called "Carbon Emacs" IIRC) had had satisfactory text rendering (and mouse support) for many years and even if I wanted to avoid switching to a Mac, I could have switched to graphical Emacs years earlier if I was willing to compile Emacs from source (and setting a flag to choose the GTK front end, not to be confused with the more recent PGTK front end).
The point is that I regret letting myself be influenced by the comments on this site to the effect that the pointing device is unimportant.
(Also, in a survey of Emacs users a few years ago, 80% report using graphical Emacs rather than using Emacs via a terminal interface.)
I didn't gain the ability to use the mouse to interact with Emacs till 2010 because before then graphical Emacs on Linux had bit-mapped text that I hated to look at (the main issue's being that it clashed horribly with the text in all the other apps I was using, including my browser). When text rendering in graphical Emacs improved and I started being able to use the mouse in Emacs, I realized I had made a big mistake in not taking the trouble to acquire the ability to use the mouse in Emacs earlier: the MacOS port (called "Carbon Emacs" IIRC) had had satisfactory text rendering (and mouse support) for many years and even if I wanted to avoid switching to a Mac, I could have switched to graphical Emacs years earlier if I was willing to compile Emacs from source (and setting a flag to choose the GTK front end, not to be confused with the more recent PGTK front end).
The point is that I regret letting myself be influenced by the comments on this site to the effect that the pointing device is unimportant.
(Also, in a survey of Emacs users a few years ago, 80% report using graphical Emacs rather than using Emacs via a terminal interface.)