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19 Responses to "QotD: Text Editor"

1. | Reply Justin Williams
   Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 3:15pm #
   

   vi. I am old school. 🙂

2. | Reply mike3k
   Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 3:31pm #
   

   emacs. You can live in it 😉

3. | Reply Macduck
   Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 3:51pm #
   

   emacs is the best 🙂

4. | Reply Erik J. Barzeski
   Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 3:54pm #
   

   Okay guys, c'mon now… none of you use GUI editors? Y'all use CLI only? I dunno about that!

5. | Reply HiFoo
   Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 4:06pm #
   

   What features in a GUI editor do you find not available in VI or emacs?

6. | Reply Tim Buchheim
   Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 4:36pm #
   

   I use both TextEdit and vim. More often vim, as I can use it on every computer at work (Solaris, Linux, BSD, Mac OS X) and I can use it over ssh to edit files on remote machines.

   Then again, I'm a UNIX sysadmin.

7. | Reply d.w.
   Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 5:21pm #
   

   SubEthaEdit. Nano when I'm trapped in a shell window, jEdit when I'm trapped on a Windows box.

8. | Reply Marc
   Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 5:35pm #
   

   Vim when I'm already in the console and editing a pre-existing file; SubEthaEdit just about everything else that isn't Cocoa (I tend to use Xcode even for the smallest Cocoa projects, and even one- or two-file C projects in school).

9. | Reply Olivier
   Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 6:01pm #
   

   BBEdit, plus bbedit when I'm in a local shell, pico when I'm in a remote shell, UltraEdit when I'm forced to use a Windows box and WinEdt when I'm forced to use a Windows box and am writing LaTeX.

10. | Reply Scott Stevenson
    Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 6:06pm #
    

    I primarily use Xcode and BBEdit, and occassionally use SubEthaEdit or vi if the situation calls for it.

11. | Reply Michael Williams
    Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 6:25pm #
    

    I use Vi[m]. As I suspect is the case for all of us, this is because it was the first "real" text editor I ever used. Real text editors are just too complex for people to invest the time and muscle memory required to develop individual preferences based on anything other than mild prejudice.

    Cases in point: I know of no one who has used more than the basic edit/save features of both emacs and Vim. I know of no one who has made the switch from vi or emacs to BBEdit.

    My own prejudice against BBEdit is the same as my own prejudice against emacs: from the outside they seem like horribly crufty, complex applications (in different ways). Doubtless both of these are unfounded.

    Uniquely and fatally for me though, BBEdit is not cross-platform and it's not Free. The first is an inconvenience if you move platforms a lot. The second is a show-stopper. It's not the money — I certainly don't mind paying for something as valuable as a good editor — but the remote prospect of BBEdit disappearing through factors outside my control. This doesn't bother me with something as ephemeral as, say, iTunes, but my editor is another matter!

12. | Reply Jeff Harrell
    Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 7:40pm #
    

    Definitely SubEthaEdit. And everybody who does UNIX-type stuff should be passingly familiar with vi, because you just never know when you're going to be sitting in front of a VT100 wired up to a Power Challenge.

13. | Reply Grayson
    Posted 30 Aug 2004 at 9:31pm #
    

    TextWrangler is my primary text editor. I have some applescripts that connect it with most of the other apps I use and to bring back some functionality that BBEdit has and I want.

    I use XCode for any code considerations, although I'm equally likely to have XCode and TW windows next to each other. Just depends on my mood, how much editing I'm doing, and what features I want.

    In the command line, pico. I dunno why, but I started using it and just keep doing so. I rarely edit in the command line since I'm always trying to cut and paste using the mouse, so just about anything with minimal functionality works well for me.

14. | Reply SoNSo1
    Posted 31 Aug 2004 at 1:30am #
    

    BBEdit most definitely is my fav, even though I currently am using VisualSlickEdit on a PC at work. BBEdit was the first text editor I truly appreciated. I have since worked on a variety of platforms. I have gotten used to emacs. Vi gets a thumbs up for the incredibly unintuitive interface. SlickEdit is rather cool on the PC side. But since I loved BBEdit first, all subsequent text editors I have used are measured against it.

15. | Reply Philip
    Posted 31 Aug 2004 at 3:57am #
    

    Call me a newbie (and I'll hit you), but I like to stick with the basics - I either use TextEdit (when doing stuff around X) or pico (for the console stuff). I am proficient in vi, but my navigation skills aren't quite enough for me to be using it on a regular basis without a cheat sheet.

16. | Reply Macduck
    Posted 31 Aug 2004 at 5:27am #
    

    Erik, you can build GUI version of the emacs 🙂

    check this out http://members.shaw.ca/akochoi-emacs/

17. | Reply Patrick Quinn-Graham
    Posted 31 Aug 2004 at 7:32am #
    

    SubEthaEdit, pico/nano, and if none of the above are available emacs.

    (Er, on that that platform no one talks about I use MetaPad, because it's faily not bad.)

18. | Reply Jeff
    Posted 31 Aug 2004 at 11:51am #
    

    What about jEdit?

    It has syntax highlighting, and even a PHP parser to show syntax errors

    to webmonkeys who use it for that purpose. It's open source, and free.

19. | Reply Jon H
    Posted 01 Sep 2004 at 10:01am #
    

    I always liked the original Edit from NeXTSTEP.

    It wasn't as limited as TextEdit, because it was also used in the development environment. It had a "developer" mode, with Unix integration (you could create menu items to invoke Unix scripts on the selection, etc). It also was integrated with GDB, with a little GUI control panel, breakpoints, and highlighting of lines as you stepped through code.