4 ms·

Best Text Editors

17 points by tpimental 18y ago

spydez 18y ago
IMO, emacs wins just for it's sheer flexibility. Yeah, it sucks at first, but if you're a professional text wrangler, you owe it to yourself to try to master one of the big two (emacs or vim)... I kept trying out emacs, getting scared off, trying it out again, scaring away again... But I always came back because other text editors annoyed me with their lack of ability to do exactly precisely what I wanted. With emacs, whatever I want to do... It's just another line of lisp in .emacs. Or sometimes another package in .emacs.d and another line in .emacs...
- j2d2 18y ago
  I don't think it sucks much at first at all... Most people I know that have a hard time with emacs don't want to learn anything fancy and think the arrow keys are fine for navigation. Let them watch you program for a few minutes and they'll be so impressed that they'll happily learn the new commands. OR, they're not cut out for technology anyway...
  - kaens 18y ago
    I had a bit of trouble with it at first, until I realized that I was supposed to be pulling it apart and making it bend to my every editing whim. The combination of keyboard-focused editing, on-the-fly extensibility, and decently thorough and clear documentation has made emacs my editor of choice for just about everything. Not to mention that you can get a constant source of ideas to code to keep yourself sharp, if that's your sort of thing.
dkokelley 18y ago
Now I'm not much of a programmer, so the answer may be obvious to some of you, but why wasn't SciTE on the list? It's lightweight and does everything I need it to. Maybe the others are just so much better than the rest. http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
- antidaily 18y ago
  I'm still using SciTE on my work PC too. I tried E, which is supposed to be like TextMate - but it was a poor immitation, imho.
- berryg 18y ago
  I am using SciTE again. I recently installed Ubuntu 8.04 and started using GEdit. But, I was really annoyed with the text selection in GEdit (programming in Python) and I missed replace within selection in GEdit. So, I switched back to SciTE.
es 18y ago
As for me I just love TextMate. "E" is a good alternative on Windows platform.
- aggieben 18y ago
  Emacs works nicely on Windows now too, and with a decent installer.
maxklein 18y ago
What's wrong with using an IDE like eclipse or Visual Studio? That's what I do.
- byrneseyeview 18y ago
  From the article: "From managing our to-do lists and writing code to jotting ideas and keeping a grocery list, nothing beats a solid plain text editor." Do you write all your text in an IDE? And: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72774 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72774
  - maxklein 18y ago
    I write code in an IDE and other text in notepad. I've never felt the need for any other type of editor. Those fit my needs quite alright.
    - byrneseyeview 18y ago
      C-x b is my notepad.
      - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
        :tabnew is mine.
truebosko 18y ago
I have used pretty much all of those and then some (e, EditPlus, Komodo, etc) over several years and the best the only one I finally fell in love with was VIM. Actually decided to use Vim cause my "e" trial expired and I have never looked back. Been using it for a few months and text editing is so fluent, easy and intuitive despite the strong learning curve. Take an hour or so each day (or every few days) and do a chapter on the 500 page Vim book.
mikeryan 18y ago
Been using UltraEdit for years and still love it on the PC, using TextMate on my Mac. I'm a bit surprised BBEdit isn't on there - it seemed to be the perennial fav for mac users for years.
- whacked_new 18y ago
  How does UE compare to TM? I have never used TM before, but apparently E is the one to compare with? I was a diehard UE fan for a couple of years.
bporterfield 18y ago
EditPlus is a good one for windows development
jamongkad 18y ago
Vim on my linux box. InType if I have to drop down to Windows.

17 points by tpimental 18y ago

IMO, emacs wins just for it's sheer flexibility. Yeah, it sucks at first, but if you're a professional text wrangler, you owe it to yourself to try to master one of the big two (emacs or vim)... I kept trying out emacs, getting scared off, trying it out again, scaring away again... But I always came back because other text editors annoyed me with their lack of ability to do exactly precisely what I wanted. With emacs, whatever I want to do... It's just another line of lisp in .emacs. Or sometimes another package in .emacs.d and another line in .emacs...

j2d2 18y ago
I don't think it sucks much at first at all... Most people I know that have a hard time with emacs don't want to learn anything fancy and think the arrow keys are fine for navigation. Let them watch you program for a few minutes and they'll be so impressed that they'll happily learn the new commands. OR, they're not cut out for technology anyway...
- kaens 18y ago
  I had a bit of trouble with it at first, until I realized that I was supposed to be pulling it apart and making it bend to my every editing whim. The combination of keyboard-focused editing, on-the-fly extensibility, and decently thorough and clear documentation has made emacs my editor of choice for just about everything. Not to mention that you can get a constant source of ideas to code to keep yourself sharp, if that's your sort of thing.

dkokelley 18y ago

Now I'm not much of a programmer, so the answer may be obvious to some of you, but why wasn't SciTE on the list? It's lightweight and does everything I need it to. Maybe the others are just so much better than the rest. http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

antidaily 18y ago
I'm still using SciTE on my work PC too. I tried E, which is supposed to be like TextMate - but it was a poor immitation, imho.
berryg 18y ago
I am using SciTE again. I recently installed Ubuntu 8.04 and started using GEdit. But, I was really annoyed with the text selection in GEdit (programming in Python) and I missed replace within selection in GEdit. So, I switched back to SciTE.

es 18y ago

As for me I just love TextMate. "E" is a good alternative on Windows platform.

aggieben 18y ago
Emacs works nicely on Windows now too, and with a decent installer.

maxklein 18y ago

What's wrong with using an IDE like eclipse or Visual Studio? That's what I do.

byrneseyeview 18y ago
From the article: "From managing our to-do lists and writing code to jotting ideas and keeping a grocery list, nothing beats a solid plain text editor." Do you write all your text in an IDE? And: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72774 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72774
- maxklein 18y ago
  I write code in an IDE and other text in notepad. I've never felt the need for any other type of editor. Those fit my needs quite alright.
  - byrneseyeview 18y ago
    C-x b is my notepad.
    - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
      :tabnew is mine.

truebosko 18y ago

I have used pretty much all of those and then some (e, EditPlus, Komodo, etc) over several years and the best the only one I finally fell in love with was VIM. Actually decided to use Vim cause my "e" trial expired and I have never looked back. Been using it for a few months and text editing is so fluent, easy and intuitive despite the strong learning curve. Take an hour or so each day (or every few days) and do a chapter on the 500 page Vim book.

mikeryan 18y ago

Been using UltraEdit for years and still love it on the PC, using TextMate on my Mac. I'm a bit surprised BBEdit isn't on there - it seemed to be the perennial fav for mac users for years.

whacked_new 18y ago
How does UE compare to TM? I have never used TM before, but apparently E is the one to compare with? I was a diehard UE fan for a couple of years.

bporterfield 18y ago

EditPlus is a good one for windows development

jamongkad 18y ago

Vim on my linux box. InType if I have to drop down to Windows.