Well, it doesn't support anything that we want to actually run on the remote. TRAMP isn't just about files: M-! in a TRAMP buffer will execute the command on the remote; M-x shell will start a shell-mode session that's running on the remote; and so on.
Also, TRAMP remotes don't need to be other machines; e.g. the `sudo` remote lets us open local files with sudo permissions. It's nice to use the same mostly-transparent approach to access other machines, other users, containers, etc.
Also, multi-hop remotes would be more painful to manage without TRAMP, e.g. Emacs will open a path like `/ssh:bastion|ssh:other-machine|sudo:/etc/foo` will open an SSH connection to `bastion`, and from there will open an SSH connection to `other-machine`, and on there will open the file `/etc/foo` using sudo privileges. Again, all the TRAMP goodies like M-! will work as they normally do :)
Well, it doesn't support anything that we want to actually run on the remote. TRAMP isn't just about files: M-! in a TRAMP buffer will execute the command on the remote; M-x shell will start a shell-mode session that's running on the remote; and so on.
Also, TRAMP remotes don't need to be other machines; e.g. the `sudo` remote lets us open local files with sudo permissions. It's nice to use the same mostly-transparent approach to access other machines, other users, containers, etc.
Also, multi-hop remotes would be more painful to manage without TRAMP, e.g. Emacs will open a path like `/ssh:bastion|ssh:other-machine|sudo:/etc/foo` will open an SSH connection to `bastion`, and from there will open an SSH connection to `other-machine`, and on there will open the file `/etc/foo` using sudo privileges. Again, all the TRAMP goodies like M-! will work as they normally do :)