That's my daily slimnastics, I often have to explore projects in languages I don't typically code in, and I have no problem running 'M-x packages' in Emacs and installing some packages and enabling some modes as needed. Even though my package manager is set in such way that it ignores these "temporarily installed packages" after the restart.

What's great about Emacs that I don't have to restart or even save anything - I can enable/disable things on the go, even installing and using lsp-servers. I typically experiment in my scratch buffer (it's persistent between the sessions), and when my experiments prove worthy adding to the config, I move them.

I have VSCode and I run it sometimes, often when I'm working with someone who doesn't use Emacs. It almost invariably requires more attention and inflicts more annoyance. it-just-works™ rarely feels working for me there.