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I have been using BBEdit forever. I try out new editors when they come across my radar, I have not had one strike me as any better. It is possible that I'm ju

by haroldp 15y ago

I have been using BBEdit forever. I try out new editors when they come across my radar, I have not had one strike me as any better. It is possible that I'm just more used to BBEdit. Would anyone like to make the case for TextMate or Sublime or whatever over BBEdit? How are they any better?

homosaur 15y ago
Sure. Mostly extensibility. I know BBEdit has made some strides here but there's no community behind it. I'm basically stuck with whatever Bare Bones ships in the current version. TextMate and Sublime on the other hand have a giant buffet of functionality provided by users. Want code completion for Go or CoffeeScript? Done. Want to add plugins to handle Git from the editor? Done. That's not to say BBEdit is bad, just that I never use it for writing text. I used to use it quite a bit when the editor of choice was TextMate simply because the find and replace was so slow and horrible, but now that I've switched to Sublime, it's not even on my dock. There's something about it though.. I'd like to use it more as I find the aesthetics clean and appealing. There's something about loading up a new app and having a CVS menu (and yeah, I know you can disable it with one click) show up by default that makes it feel a little old. Until it gets more extensions and a command line tool from the editor, I dunno. It's probably staying in the closet.
- haroldp 15y ago
  Good stuff! I consider code completion, "that thing that makes me stabby until I figure out how to turn it off," but that may just be my failing. I do use various third party clippings/scripts with BBEdit, and I'm pretty happy with it's extensibility. What "command line tool" is it missing for you? I hear you about the CVS menu though. :)
- leejoramo 15y ago
  I agree that for the past 8 years or so the community aspect of BBEdit has been in a coma. The email lists use to be very active years ago. However, in the last year that has begun to change. TidBITS recently released "Take Control of BBEdit". There is increased activity on GitHub. And number of new blogs are talking about BBEdit. http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/bbedit http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/bbedit https://github.com/search?utf8=✓&q=bbedit&type=Everything&repo=&langOverride=&start_value=1 https://github.com/search?utf8=✓&q=bbedit&type=Every... http://www.macdrifter.com/?s=bbedit&x=0&y=0 http://www.macdrifter.com/?s=bbedit&x=0&y=0 http://bbedit-hints.tumblr.com/ http://bbedit-hints.tumblr.com/
- nickm12 15y ago
  So.. I think BBEdit is very extensible. The trouble is that there isn't a community building and publishing good extensions. One thing I do like is features like "codeless syntax modules". I've built syntax coloring for various obscure languages in about 15 minutes using this feature. (of course had I been using emacs I would have been able to get the feature in a few minutes with a web search and download).

by haroldp 15y ago

homosaur 15y ago

Sure. Mostly extensibility. I know BBEdit has made some strides here but there's no community behind it. I'm basically stuck with whatever Bare Bones ships in the current version. TextMate and Sublime on the other hand have a giant buffet of functionality provided by users. Want code completion for Go or CoffeeScript? Done. Want to add plugins to handle Git from the editor? Done. That's not to say BBEdit is bad, just that I never use it for writing text. I used to use it quite a bit when the editor of choice was TextMate simply because the find and replace was so slow and horrible, but now that I've switched to Sublime, it's not even on my dock. There's something about it though.. I'd like to use it more as I find the aesthetics clean and appealing. There's something about loading up a new app and having a CVS menu (and yeah, I know you can disable it with one click) show up by default that makes it feel a little old. Until it gets more extensions and a command line tool from the editor, I dunno. It's probably staying in the closet.

haroldp 15y ago
Good stuff! I consider code completion, "that thing that makes me stabby until I figure out how to turn it off," but that may just be my failing. I do use various third party clippings/scripts with BBEdit, and I'm pretty happy with it's extensibility. What "command line tool" is it missing for you? I hear you about the CVS menu though. :)
leejoramo 15y ago
I agree that for the past 8 years or so the community aspect of BBEdit has been in a coma. The email lists use to be very active years ago. However, in the last year that has begun to change. TidBITS recently released "Take Control of BBEdit". There is increased activity on GitHub. And number of new blogs are talking about BBEdit. http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/bbedit http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/bbedit https://github.com/search?utf8=✓&q=bbedit&type=Everything&repo=&langOverride=&start_value=1 https://github.com/search?utf8=✓&q=bbedit&type=Every... http://www.macdrifter.com/?s=bbedit&x=0&y=0 http://www.macdrifter.com/?s=bbedit&x=0&y=0 http://bbedit-hints.tumblr.com/ http://bbedit-hints.tumblr.com/
nickm12 15y ago
So.. I think BBEdit is very extensible. The trouble is that there isn't a community building and publishing good extensions. One thing I do like is features like "codeless syntax modules". I've built syntax coloring for various obscure languages in about 15 minutes using this feature. (of course had I been using emacs I would have been able to get the feature in a few minutes with a web search and download).