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I think editing text is a solved problem. Apart from that there are so many different text editors, that there is a perfect match for everyone. It's like hammer

I think editing text is a solved problem. Apart from that there are so many different text editors, that there is a perfect match for everyone. It's like hammers. But how many times are you really editing text? Instead of some data structure that is somehow represented as text. This applies to configuration files, code, heck even human language. It's can be easy to get distracted by the syntax and forget the underlying structure that you're editing. Because of that, I think the future is in editors that understand the semantic context, let you focus on that and hide as much as possible of the rest.

dlikhten 15y ago
Erm, the problem is that all these editors are implementing something amazing, and something shitty. So there needs to be a way to give people the hammer they like without sacrificing the rest of the toolbox. This is why people like command-line tools, they are useful anywhere in any editor, but not everything is for that, or maybe it should be.... Maybe we need some service that runs on a java/ruby/python project and feeds you autocomplete info that any editor can access... HMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!
whichdan 15y ago
This is why I really liked EmEditor. It had neat features like vertical selection and native CSV support. It's great being able to switch between filetypes and have the editor automatically adapt to what you're working with. EmEditor also had better Find/Replace support. TextMate likes to freeze up while searching through files, and a lot of other editors seem to just shove the Find/Replace dialogue wherever there's some extra space. I think there's a lot of room for innovation here. Besides that, I mainly just want a clean & configurable environment. TextMate does that well, since I have a project drawer, tabs, symbol jump list at the bottom, and nothing else. Edit: For what it's worth, I've been using TextMate for about a year, and I'm in the process of switching to Vim/Vico.

dlikhten 15y ago

Erm, the problem is that all these editors are implementing something amazing, and something shitty. So there needs to be a way to give people the hammer they like without sacrificing the rest of the toolbox. This is why people like command-line tools, they are useful anywhere in any editor, but not everything is for that, or maybe it should be.... Maybe we need some service that runs on a java/ruby/python project and feeds you autocomplete info that any editor can access... HMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!

whichdan 15y ago

This is why I really liked EmEditor. It had neat features like vertical selection and native CSV support. It's great being able to switch between filetypes and have the editor automatically adapt to what you're working with. EmEditor also had better Find/Replace support. TextMate likes to freeze up while searching through files, and a lot of other editors seem to just shove the Find/Replace dialogue wherever there's some extra space. I think there's a lot of room for innovation here. Besides that, I mainly just want a clean & configurable environment. TextMate does that well, since I have a project drawer, tabs, symbol jump list at the bottom, and nothing else. Edit: For what it's worth, I've been using TextMate for about a year, and I'm in the process of switching to Vim/Vico.