Many languages in eclipse have some sort of "default" Hello World project which will start you off with everything necessary to navigate, compile, and run a multi-file project
(ie Java can use Ant or Maven or any number of other options, CDT will automatically create a Makefile, DDT creates the necessary DUB XML configuration files, haskell creates Setup.hs and {ProjectName}.cabal, Ocaml uses ocamlbuild).
Does Emacs have anything similar? I'm trying to switch to Emacs, but I find that as soon as my project uses more than one file, I have no idea how to set it up in Emacs. I'd rather not have to write configuration files and compilation scripts myself. That seems like something the IDE should be able to take care of on its own.
In addition to cedet, you can try out Projectile: http://batsov.com/projectile/