a good programming text editor (not IDE)

[John Salerno]

I know there's a request for a good IDE at least once a week on the ng,
but hopefully this question is a little different. I'm looking for
suggestions for a good cross-platform text editor (which the features
for coding, such as syntax highlighting, etc.) but not a full IDE with
all the fancy jazz (GUI developer, UML diagrams, etc.).

Ideally, it would be something I could even put on a flash drive and
move from computer to computer, but this isn't necessary. Just something
I can immediately use in either Windows or Linux (or Mac, if necessary).

Based on another thread, I tried out Scite, but no matter what I do it
doesn't seem to remember the window size and position, or any options I
choose (like showing line numbers). It seems to always reset itself each
time I open it.

And naturally there are Emacs and Vim, but I just don't know if I need
to invest *that* much time into learning one of them (probably Vim,
since I hear it's lighter and faster).

I've tried a few others, like TextPad and Crimson, and right now I use
UltraEdit, which I love actually, except for minor issues here and
there. But it'd be nice to make the move, as much as possible, to free,
open-source, cross-platform software.

Thanks for any suggestions, and again I'm sorry if this feels like the
same question as usual (it's just that in my case, I'm not looking for
something like SPE, Komodo, Eric3, etc. right now).

[Jarek Zgoda]

BartlebyScriven er napisa³(a):

Emacs must be dying if this thread could get all the way to 20 with
nobody arguing with the vi folks. Will the Windows vim and gvim users
vouch for its stability on Windows?

Sure. Do you need any legal assistance?

--
Jarek Zgoda
http://jpa.berlios.de/

[Benji York]

BartlebyScriven er wrote:

Emacs must be dying if this thread could get all the way to 20 with
nobody arguing with the vi folks.
heh :)
Will the Windows vim and gvim users vouch for its stability on
Windows?

It's very stable on Windows.
--
Benji York

[Istvan Albert]

Scott David Daniels wrote:

To paraphrase someone else (their identity lost in my mental fog) about
learning VI:
"The two weeks you'll spend hating vi (or vim) as you learn it will
be repaid in another month, ad the rest is pure profit."

Time and again I hear this (no shortage of Vim fans, same with Emacs),
and I know I should know better but always believe them yet again.
Invariably I download Vim play with it for an hour, get increasingly
frustrated and give up. Most likely I'm greatly spoiled by using
EditPlus (Windows only), it just makes it so easy to do the basic
programming tasks that I need, everywhere else I turn I see far more
functionality but at the price of not being able to do basic tasks as
efficiently as I need them.

Say I want to be able to execute the python program I'm currently
editing. Nothing simpler in EditPlus, Tools->Configure Tools->Add Tool
then specify which program you want to run, what parameters it takes
and whether to capture the output or not ... total time it took me
first time I wanted to do this ... about 3 minutes ... from now on
pressing Ctrl-1 while editing the source will execute the python on the
current source *and* it displays the output in a lower pane as it runs
*and* it allows me to simultanously edit the file *while* the program
is running. Outstanding.

Yet after searching and reading stuff for more than an hour I was
unable to accomplish the same thing in Vim though I'm already familiar
enough with basic editing and setup (through my previous trials and
tribulations) ... I have a few solutions that end up doing something
similar but are quite a few keypresses longer both to invoke or to get
back to the source that I'm writing, or I lose editing control while
the program is running ... etc...

So if the OP is on windows just head over and get EditPlus (UltraEdit
and TextPad seem to be similar), and just accept the fact that you are
already using an editor that as good as an editor can get ... I know
I'd pay that registration once again for an editor that works the same
way on Linux...

i.

[Fredrik Lundh]

BartlebyScriven er wrote:

Emacs must be dying if this thread could get all the way to 20 with
nobody arguing with the vi folks.

hints: 1) editor wars are so last century. 2) emacs has already won.

</F>

[Jarek Zgoda]

Fredrik Lundh napisa³(a):

Emacs must be dying if this thread could get all the way to 20 with
nobody arguing with the vi folks.

1) editor wars are so last century. 2) emacs has already won.

You died in last century with your editor, we have tabs.

--
Jarek Zgoda
http://jpa.berlios.de/

[John Salerno]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:

hints: 1) editor wars are so last century. 2) emacs has already won.

Uh oh, here we go............. . ;)

[Fredrik Lundh]

Jarek Zgoda wrote:

You died in last century with your editor, we have tabs.

real python programmers don't use tabs.

</F>

[Scott David Daniels]

Istvan Albert wrote:

Scott David Daniels wrote:

To paraphrase someone else (their identity lost in my mental fog) about
learning VI:
"The two weeks you'll spend hating vi (or vim) as you learn it will
be repaid in another month, ad the rest is pure profit."

Time and again I hear this (no shortage of Vim fans, same with Emacs),
and I know I should know better but always believe them yet again.
Invariably I download Vim play with it for an hour, get increasingly
frustrated and give up.

Surprise, surprise. One hour is not two weeks.

--Scott David Daniels
sc***********@a cm.org

[Slawomir Nowaczyk]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:18:53 -0700
BartlebyScriven er <rp*******@gmai l.com> wrote:

#> Emacs must be dying if this thread could get all the way to 20 with
#> nobody arguing with the vi folks.

We have learned the important lesson: those who are looking for true
enlightenment will find Emacs anyway. We no longer feel the need to
argue with people who praise various versions of notepad ;-) ;-) ;-)

--
Best wishes,
Slawomir Nowaczyk
( Sl************* **@cs.lth.se )

Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.

[Jarek Zgoda]

Fredrik Lundh napisa³(a):

You died in last century with your editor, we have tabs.

real python programmers don't use tabs.

So I'll tab you the beer I owe you when we meet at EuroPython.

--
Jarek Zgoda
http://jpa.berlios.de/