Is it worth paying for Textmate or can I find a free one that will do, like TextWrangler? I'm just starting to learn how to code so I think my needs are pretty basic.
Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
1–10 of 72 posts
Re: Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
#2While TextMate is nice, and I paid for it myself, I recently decided to start learning Vim because you can essentially use it on any platform. It may take some time to learn, but I believe it will be greatly beneficial in the long run.
I urge you to check out MacVim (http://code.google.com/p/macvim/).
You can add many of TextMate's features to Vim using plugins like snippetsEmu.
Re: Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
#3Install Emacs... It's free and every editor is trying to reinvent what this one already does.
Re: Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
#4I'm already very familiar with Emacs, but I picked up TextMate anyway. I'm happy with my decision when working on a Mac.
TextMate has a free trial, and the Pragmatic book on it is a solid introduction. But since you're just starting, the price might not be worth it.
Re: Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
#5There is a free 30 day of demo of TextMate. Why not try it and then ask nomad whether it's worth it? The relevant thing is what works best for you - if you are a programmer then the price of any of these is inconsequential (yes, even BBEdit) given how much you will be using it. On the Mac, more so than on other platforms, you will find that shareware apps are frequently best-of-breed.
Re: Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
#6Depends on what you're doing. I like WriteRoom if I'm writing prose. I like TextMate for generic code viewing and editing (e.g., random XML docs). I still prefer IntelliJ for Java or Arc coding.
Re: Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
#7smultron has been good for me, although i am not familiar enough with textmate to compare the two.
Re: Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
#8The learning curve for Vim, Emacs is much higher than textmate. If you can afford to buy Textmate, then do so. It is well worth the money and will increase your productivity.
Re: Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
#9Emacs.app is your friend. Seriously.
Re: Ask YC: Mac Text Editors
#10In my opinion, it would be a lot more productive to learn one of the "standard text editors," namely vi(m) or emacs. The learning curve is higher, but it will allow to be very productive on almost any Unix-based operating system.
Textmate is a great product with a lot of useful features right out of the box, and it very Mac-like with its UI and Apple-style keyboard shortcuts. It also has a lot of macros, and you can access a lot of shell commands straight from the menus. However, by hiding all of these details, it makes it more difficult to use a computer that does not have Textmate on it.
Thus, if the "Macness" of a program is very important to you, and you don't mind being dependent on one machine and one proprietary program, then Textmate is certainly worth the cost. If not, then I recommend you save the money and build skills for the future by learning how to work with vim or emacs.