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TextMate is my favourite editor on the Mac, only recently have I been using MacVim on my work computer since as a startup they are unable to purchase a license

TextMate is my favourite editor on the Mac, only recently have I been using MacVim on my work computer since as a startup they are unable to purchase a license for TextMate. Honestly though, there are some things in MacVim I am now starting to miss in TextMate.

teilo 16y ago
The longer you use MacVim, the more that will be true. Before you know it, you will hardly miss TextMate at all.
- Legion 16y ago
  With a few Vim plugins, there's nothing left to miss. One of particular note for TextMate users, Command-T: https://wincent.com/products/command-t https://wincent.com/products/command-t
  - dasil003 16y ago
    There are a few things. Because I do so many other things with various text fields on my machine, and vim bindings everywhere is not really feasible (yet?!), being very adept with the Command/Option/Shift/Arrow Keys/Cut/Paste is something that has widespread utility. The vim bindings for this stuff are much richer, and fewer key strokes of course, but the universality matters, and the buffer/clipboard dichotomy is pretty well handled in MacVim, but it's still the type of thing that is quite difficult to really dial-in without building for a specific OS from the ground up. And of course there are a few nice things that developing for a specific GUI affords you where vim even with plugins isn't quite as elegant. However that said, all editors involve tradeoffs, and Vim's ubiquity and raw editing power make it kind of a sure bet until the day we are dictating whole programs to orders-of-magnitude-smarter-than-human AIs. Emacs also gets the nod of course, since there is no chance of either of those going away, and no chance that anyone invents an editor that blows both of those away for all general purpose editing. But I do have to give Allan Odgaard special thanks for forcibly showing me the light: that no matter how brilliant proprietary software may be, if it's my primary tool that I intend to use for the next 50+ years, closed source or a project with a risk of losing critical mass is simply a poor bet over time. And of course I will still buy TM 2 when it comes out if he reverses his decision not to charge for it (which he should, and maybe give it away to individuals that complain, because who shouldn't be paid for years of secret toil?), and I'll likely still use it for its diff syntax highlighting, complex regex ack (because how long does it take to figure out the number of backslashes to escape something through ex, bash, and ack?). But it'll join BBEdit (which I use for encoding munging) in my quiver of specialized tools.
    - X-Istence 16y ago
      I love TextMate but I do feel that at the current pace it is in my best interest to learn new text editors. There is also something to be said for vim opening a 8 GB file, and searching through it to replace what used to be an unreserved name in a MySQL dump to a reserved name. Most if not all other editors will completely fail. While at first I was sad that I couldn't just have my TextMate at work (another user just pointed out I can use one license for work and home! Score!) I am also glad that I have learned at least the surface plus a couple of centimetres of what vim is all about and how powerful it really is.
  - elbenshira 16y ago
    I use PeepOpen: http://peepcode.com/products/peepopen http://peepcode.com/products/peepopen It's the best thing ever.
- X-Istence 16y ago
  That is indeed what I have been finding out as I go along. I've got MacVim set up with NerdTree, and a snippets plugin much like Text Mate has and I almost never have the feeling that I want TextMate.
tptacek 16y ago
A company that can pay a developer salary but won't pay the cost of that developer's favorite text editor has its priorities out of whack.
- j_baker 16y ago
  Especially when said editor costs only $55. That's nothing compared to the cost of a lot of other commercial editors.
  - stretchwithme 16y ago
    yeah, could pay for itself the first week
  - noarchy 16y ago
    There are also editors that do far more, for free. That's not to belittle TextMate users. I'm just saying that when it comes time to making decisions about spending money, it may be difficult to convince some managers to want to fork over the cash for something like this.
    - sjs 16y ago
      There's a lot of value in how easy TM makes snippets and all that. Yes a lot of free editors do more but it often requires more effort too. TM is well worth the money for that reason.
    - j_baker 16y ago
      I agree with you, but considering how much you spend on developers in salary, benefits, and equipment, $55 is for all intents and purposes free.
- gnaritas 16y ago
  A developer who'd not spend less than a hundred bucks of his own money for his tool of choice, and still take the job, confuses me.
- X-Istence 16y ago
Timothee 16y ago
It seemed to me that the Textmate license was actually allowing you to use your own license for home and work use. Actually, confirmed from the site: http://macromates.com/license_policy http://macromates.com/license_policy "A user is allowed to bring his personal license with him to work, should the company allow it, and use that." There you go, problem solved!
- X-Istence 16y ago
  Awesome, didn't know about that!
tzs 16y ago
A startup that is unable to purchase a TextMate license is underfunded to the point that it is probably not smart to work for them.
- X-Istence 16y ago
  I am using the only Mac in the office, we are using Qt for cross platform development and they pay a license for that. Being the only Mac user means I don't get to take advantage of all of the licenses that the Windows developers have access to through various Microsoft programs like BizSpark. We are currently going through our B-round of funding, and hopefully after that it will be easier to ask for various pieces of software, for now I have decided in an effort to save on various different costs it is not worth pushing the effort.

teilo 16y ago

The longer you use MacVim, the more that will be true. Before you know it, you will hardly miss TextMate at all.

Legion 16y ago
With a few Vim plugins, there's nothing left to miss. One of particular note for TextMate users, Command-T: https://wincent.com/products/command-t https://wincent.com/products/command-t
- dasil003 16y ago
  There are a few things. Because I do so many other things with various text fields on my machine, and vim bindings everywhere is not really feasible (yet?!), being very adept with the Command/Option/Shift/Arrow Keys/Cut/Paste is something that has widespread utility. The vim bindings for this stuff are much richer, and fewer key strokes of course, but the universality matters, and the buffer/clipboard dichotomy is pretty well handled in MacVim, but it's still the type of thing that is quite difficult to really dial-in without building for a specific OS from the ground up. And of course there are a few nice things that developing for a specific GUI affords you where vim even with plugins isn't quite as elegant. However that said, all editors involve tradeoffs, and Vim's ubiquity and raw editing power make it kind of a sure bet until the day we are dictating whole programs to orders-of-magnitude-smarter-than-human AIs. Emacs also gets the nod of course, since there is no chance of either of those going away, and no chance that anyone invents an editor that blows both of those away for all general purpose editing. But I do have to give Allan Odgaard special thanks for forcibly showing me the light: that no matter how brilliant proprietary software may be, if it's my primary tool that I intend to use for the next 50+ years, closed source or a project with a risk of losing critical mass is simply a poor bet over time. And of course I will still buy TM 2 when it comes out if he reverses his decision not to charge for it (which he should, and maybe give it away to individuals that complain, because who shouldn't be paid for years of secret toil?), and I'll likely still use it for its diff syntax highlighting, complex regex ack (because how long does it take to figure out the number of backslashes to escape something through ex, bash, and ack?). But it'll join BBEdit (which I use for encoding munging) in my quiver of specialized tools.
  - X-Istence 16y ago
    I love TextMate but I do feel that at the current pace it is in my best interest to learn new text editors. There is also something to be said for vim opening a 8 GB file, and searching through it to replace what used to be an unreserved name in a MySQL dump to a reserved name. Most if not all other editors will completely fail. While at first I was sad that I couldn't just have my TextMate at work (another user just pointed out I can use one license for work and home! Score!) I am also glad that I have learned at least the surface plus a couple of centimetres of what vim is all about and how powerful it really is.
- elbenshira 16y ago
  I use PeepOpen: http://peepcode.com/products/peepopen http://peepcode.com/products/peepopen It's the best thing ever.
X-Istence 16y ago
That is indeed what I have been finding out as I go along. I've got MacVim set up with NerdTree, and a snippets plugin much like Text Mate has and I almost never have the feeling that I want TextMate.

tptacek 16y ago

A company that can pay a developer salary but won't pay the cost of that developer's favorite text editor has its priorities out of whack.

j_baker 16y ago
Especially when said editor costs only $55. That's nothing compared to the cost of a lot of other commercial editors.
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  yeah, could pay for itself the first week
- noarchy 16y ago
  There are also editors that do far more, for free. That's not to belittle TextMate users. I'm just saying that when it comes time to making decisions about spending money, it may be difficult to convince some managers to want to fork over the cash for something like this.
  - sjs 16y ago
    There's a lot of value in how easy TM makes snippets and all that. Yes a lot of free editors do more but it often requires more effort too. TM is well worth the money for that reason.
  - j_baker 16y ago
    I agree with you, but considering how much you spend on developers in salary, benefits, and equipment, $55 is for all intents and purposes free.
gnaritas 16y ago
A developer who'd not spend less than a hundred bucks of his own money for his tool of choice, and still take the job, confuses me.
X-Istence 16y ago

Timothee 16y ago

It seemed to me that the Textmate license was actually allowing you to use your own license for home and work use. Actually, confirmed from the site: http://macromates.com/license_policy http://macromates.com/license_policy "A user is allowed to bring his personal license with him to work, should the company allow it, and use that." There you go, problem solved!

X-Istence 16y ago
Awesome, didn't know about that!

tzs 16y ago

A startup that is unable to purchase a TextMate license is underfunded to the point that it is probably not smart to work for them.

X-Istence 16y ago
I am using the only Mac in the office, we are using Qt for cross platform development and they pay a license for that. Being the only Mac user means I don't get to take advantage of all of the licenses that the Windows developers have access to through various Microsoft programs like BizSpark. We are currently going through our B-round of funding, and hopefully after that it will be easier to ask for various pieces of software, for now I have decided in an effort to save on various different costs it is not worth pushing the effort.