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Ask HN: Best code editor?

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Re: Ask HN: Best code editor?

#62

Post by davepeck »

barredo wrote: post #11
alx wrote: post #4

Textmate

Love textmate, use it as main text editor, but it's time for Textmate 2 and its split-screen option.

TextMate needs split-screen today. It still surprises the hell out of me that they haven't issued a 1.X point release that adds this feature. WTF?

Re: Ask HN: Best code editor?

#63

Post by iigs »

mkeblx wrote: post #32

Notepad. It's a simple, feature-rich, light-weight editor. The learning curve is long and steep though, but well worth it. I've been using if for 3 years now and still don't know all it's bells and whistles. Best of all it comes preinstalled on a lot of OSs so you don't have to go through a laborious install process.

You're clearly being sarcastic, but Notepad is actually pretty darn good for a lot of minor coding tasks. It would be keen if MSFT would add a few more features and disable them by default, but on balance it's usable for quite a few things.

Re: Ask HN: Best code editor?

#64

Post by jcromartie »

nixme wrote: post #8

Emacs. And yes, I'm very satisfied with it. Everytime I see a feature in another editor I like, EmacsWiki usually has an implementation or guide. Plus emacs has org-mode...

I started using Emacs for a job that used a custom framework built around an old version of a rather non-mainstream language. I found some Emacs modes for the language, but they were a few versions ahead of what we were using. I was able to hack them pretty easily. The thing that amazed me was exactly how much else I managed to squeeze out of Emacs compared to the other editors I explored. I had editor commands to jump around and create new files and run and test our stuff. Yeah it's a long slow learning curve, but in the end I had built a decent development tool for this particular job.

If I had used any other editor, it would have just been a text editor, and nothing more. With Emacs I could build real tools and multiply my effectiveness. If this job weren't Windows-only (yeah...) I would have used TextMate, but I think I'm better for forcing myself to learn Emacs.

Re: Ask HN: Best code editor?

#65

Post by mhansen »

aditya wrote: post #28
camflan wrote: post #3

vim

I'm curious if anyone is using vim on windows as the OP mentioned he is using Notepad++ and Visual Studio (both Windows environments)? If you are using vim, what has your experience been like?

I use it with cygwin, because the unix utilities are a must have.

You can use it natively, and it works fine too, but I really like my unix utils

Re: Ask HN: Best code editor?

#67

Post by mhansen »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #24
camflan wrote: post #3

vim

another +1, but you need to learn to use it properly. Tags, windows, changing files, external commands, macros, etc. It's not user friendly, in fact it's downright user hostile, but it's powerful, and written for hackers.

Downright user hostile? Vim has the best help system I've ever used. Everything is documented, and a few keystrokes away

Re: Ask HN: Best code editor?

#68

Post by timmfin »

Legion wrote: post #33
johndoe77 wrote: post #19

Eclipse

I have come to really appreciate Eclipse. It's come a long way since the first time I tried to use it. Eclipse, plus vim in a terminal window, take care of all of my editing needs.

Personally I bounce back and forth between vim, eclipse, and textmate depending on the project (eg: shell, java, web).

Also, I'd recommend eclipse users (that are vim fans) to try out viplugin (http://www.viplugin.com/viplugin/). It is far from supporting all of vim's commands, but it has enough for me to feel comfortable.

Re: Ask HN: Best code editor?

#69

Post by Gonsalu »

erlanger wrote: post #29
aditya wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if anyone is using vim on windows as the OP mentioned he is using Notepad++ and Visual Studio (both Windows environments)? If you are using vim, what has your experience been like?

Works fine. Unfortunately, developing without Unix stinks. and Cygwin is a hack (very slow). Vim is much more powerful with Unix tools on hand. I learned Vim on XP (no choice of OS, so it was the best choice).

No need for cygwin (for some things at least). I downloaded the win32 ports of GNU utilities, and put them all in a directory which I then add to the PATH.

http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/

Doing so, not only can I use them in vim (!sort, !ls, etc), but I also get a friendlier cmd :)

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