Ask HN: Which editor is your favorite?

2 points by dbz ↗ HN
Which editors do you prefer for programming and why? Different editors for different languages?

4 comments

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TextMate...like I'm guessing most Mac users will answer. Kod looks promising.
Necessary to me:

1. Reasonable syntax highlighting.

2. Handles large files.

3. Tab/Space configurable.

4. Handles multi-line indentation in a user-friendly way

5. Cross Platform

6. Edit files via FTP connection.

Important to me:

1. Some amount of "project" understanding.

2. Column mode.

3. Hex editor.

4. Memory sensitive, quick startup.

UltraEdit - I haven't found anything superior to UltraEdit's project management, column mode, and hex editing (available for Windows, Mac, and Linux - but commercial).

gedit - You don't always need project management, column mod, and hex editing, and in that case gedit still supports edit over FTP and other standard perks that UltraEdit offers - and uses far less memory. gedit is also available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but I've only ever used it on Linux.

vim - You need to be at least capable with some terminal editor, otherwise you'll be sorry when you inevitably need to learn one during an emergency. vi/vim, nano, emacs, whatever - I like vim.

gedit supports edit over anything that gnome vfs has to offer, in my case it means ftp, ssh, samba and webdav. I like gedit it's minimalism without being crippled, there are some plugins to offer extra functionality.
Great points, I didn't intend to make gedit sound crippled by explicitly noting FTP, it's a great editor.

Thanks!