As someone that works on Rails projects almost all of the time, no, for a few different reasons.
1. Coda (1+2) are geared towards one file = one file output to preview. Obviously Rails doesn't work this way.
2. Starting a project from the CLI, I often open it in Sublime 2, TM, etc from the same window. I don't see the value of adding all my settings for project folders, remote servers and git details a second time in Coda, when they're all in the folder already. I deploy everything on Heroku and store them on Github.
3. Haml, Scss and Coffeescript largely eliminate the need for validation. If your code is wrong, they won't compile it.
4. Keyboard Shortcuts. I use Sublime on a MBA without a mouse or trackpad most of the time. I much prefer working through shortcuts than I do by clicking on stuff, which the majority of the Coda UI is geared towards.
5. Quick Open/Peepopen. I saw nothing about Coda 2 having this. It's absolutely necessary IMO. All text editors should follow the same behaviour as Peepopen, something that Chocolat doesn't do (but it should).
Coda is a great editor for designers and for lightweight PHP devs, but I don't see it's value for people who spend all day looking at code.
Let me preface this by saying Coda 2 is a great development tool, assuming that it works the way that you like work. Personally, it doesn't fit into my development workflow. Coda 2 wants to be a one-stop shop for all of your development needs. So, if that's what you want in a text editor then I would definitely recommend you try it out.
I, personally, do not work that way. I want my text editor to be as absent as possible. I want it to correct indentions and maybe auto complete tags as I go. I want to FTP everything myself. I want to preview the site in Safari and Firefox. I want to use SSH through terminal and Git through GitHub. That is where Coda 2 and I do not agree. Coda 2 is full of amazing features with a fantastic implementation that is too bloated for my needs. However, that comes down to how you want to use your text editor. For me, TextMate and BBEdit are the only editors I will ever use.
As someone who recently switched to Mac, I tried Coda first. It was looking beautiful and everything, but stops at being just that. Beyond eye-candy, I could not use it much - after a month of dabbling around with many editors, I have now settled for Sublime2.
I bought licenses for Coda2, TextMate, and Sublime Text 2.
I haven't opened TextMate in months. ST2 I use every day on every machine - including my Windows and Linux machines at work, and my Mac at home.
Also, the Vintage plugin gives me close-enough vim commands to navigate and edit, and can be toggled with a keystroke.
I'm in heaven.
Coda2, is nice for design and live preview on the iPad is crazy cool, but the keyboard shortcuts feel very ergonomicly awkward and it doesn't seem to have the incredibly useful 'list all commands in fuzzy search' thing that TextMate and ST2 do so well.
I use Coda2 when I'm messing with CSS, but for everything else, it's ST2.
Oh not this again. If you prefer vim or sublime2 as a matter of course you are not even remotely within the target audience of Coda - so I suspect this is just another invitation to yet another round of "I'm a badass and you're all pansies". I apologize if this wasn't your intention but it certainly comes across as such.
But since you asked, I need an editor with good syntax highlighting and very good SFTP support. I practically don't care about anything else. Code completion, in-editor documentation, refactoring tools - all that doesn't matter to me. I don't care if Coda is considered "fancy", it does those two basic things for me and it does them well. It does them better than skEdit or anything else that I used before. vim, sublime, or most other "hardcore" editors don't or do them poorly or do them only with badly bolted-on plugins.
I believe this is true for many programmers (maybe not the most vocal ones though), they want something done and they don't really care if the software that does it is publicly ridiculed as a children's toy. The easiest way to score points with a certain kind of crowd is to publicly proclaim "vim all the way baby" and then privately open a Coda window to get some work done.
If I was using a similar product and Coda2 provided more/better features, maybe. Since I'm not, no.
I've downloaded it yesterday out of curiosity but I didn't expand the archive. If my general lack of interest for the Panic hype machine is a good indicator, I suppose it will stay untouched in ~/Downloads for some time before going straight to the trashcan.
But why do you ask? Are you going to switch if enough HNers answer yes?
Since i've committed myself to invest and learn emacs i no longer worry about editors. Like the book Pragmatic Programmer book suggests, pick one editor that is extensible and be very good at it. Emacs was just my choice. Any editor is good. Just learn it well.
11 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 27.6 ms ] thread1. Coda (1+2) are geared towards one file = one file output to preview. Obviously Rails doesn't work this way.
2. Starting a project from the CLI, I often open it in Sublime 2, TM, etc from the same window. I don't see the value of adding all my settings for project folders, remote servers and git details a second time in Coda, when they're all in the folder already. I deploy everything on Heroku and store them on Github.
3. Haml, Scss and Coffeescript largely eliminate the need for validation. If your code is wrong, they won't compile it.
4. Keyboard Shortcuts. I use Sublime on a MBA without a mouse or trackpad most of the time. I much prefer working through shortcuts than I do by clicking on stuff, which the majority of the Coda UI is geared towards.
5. Quick Open/Peepopen. I saw nothing about Coda 2 having this. It's absolutely necessary IMO. All text editors should follow the same behaviour as Peepopen, something that Chocolat doesn't do (but it should).
Coda is a great editor for designers and for lightweight PHP devs, but I don't see it's value for people who spend all day looking at code.
I, personally, do not work that way. I want my text editor to be as absent as possible. I want it to correct indentions and maybe auto complete tags as I go. I want to FTP everything myself. I want to preview the site in Safari and Firefox. I want to use SSH through terminal and Git through GitHub. That is where Coda 2 and I do not agree. Coda 2 is full of amazing features with a fantastic implementation that is too bloated for my needs. However, that comes down to how you want to use your text editor. For me, TextMate and BBEdit are the only editors I will ever use.
I haven't opened TextMate in months. ST2 I use every day on every machine - including my Windows and Linux machines at work, and my Mac at home.
Also, the Vintage plugin gives me close-enough vim commands to navigate and edit, and can be toggled with a keystroke.
I'm in heaven.
Coda2, is nice for design and live preview on the iPad is crazy cool, but the keyboard shortcuts feel very ergonomicly awkward and it doesn't seem to have the incredibly useful 'list all commands in fuzzy search' thing that TextMate and ST2 do so well.
I use Coda2 when I'm messing with CSS, but for everything else, it's ST2.
But since you asked, I need an editor with good syntax highlighting and very good SFTP support. I practically don't care about anything else. Code completion, in-editor documentation, refactoring tools - all that doesn't matter to me. I don't care if Coda is considered "fancy", it does those two basic things for me and it does them well. It does them better than skEdit or anything else that I used before. vim, sublime, or most other "hardcore" editors don't or do them poorly or do them only with badly bolted-on plugins.
I believe this is true for many programmers (maybe not the most vocal ones though), they want something done and they don't really care if the software that does it is publicly ridiculed as a children's toy. The easiest way to score points with a certain kind of crowd is to publicly proclaim "vim all the way baby" and then privately open a Coda window to get some work done.
I've downloaded it yesterday out of curiosity but I didn't expand the archive. If my general lack of interest for the Panic hype machine is a good indicator, I suppose it will stay untouched in ~/Downloads for some time before going straight to the trashcan.
But why do you ask? Are you going to switch if enough HNers answer yes?