Archived thread 1030892 from Recurring Discussions. Markdown source: Recurring_Discussions/thread_1030892_Which_text_editor.md
Okay, usually when I'm programming, I'll use a text editor for that specific language. But I've been hearing that a lot of programmers use vi or EMACS. Is this true? And if so, why use one of those instead of a more programming-oriented editor?
Thanks, Jordy
Because vim is incredibly powerful and makes editing any text fast and easy.
Well I don't know why anyone would want to use emacs, but I use Vim for the reasons mentioned above...
/ducks
igknighted said: Well I don't know why anyone would want to use emacs, but I use Vim for the reasons mentioned above...
/ducks No need for that. Emacs is a perfectly good operating system, even if the included editor isn't very good ;)
[IMG]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/real_programmers.png[/IMG]
sorry, couldn't help myself I've never used either of them but nano and kate work for me :]
SuperSonic4 said:
sorry, couldn't help myself I've never used either of them but nano and kate work for me :] It doesn't have the raw power of vim, but nano is a very good editor.
Many use Vi/Vim because they of the 2 modes, the keyboard commands, macros and the fact that you don't have to take your hands away from the keyboard to get something done. On the other hand Emacs is very much a complete enviroment, you can pretty much do everything while working on Emacs and it has only one mode, which is something I like :D.
Well that was an awfully fast response. Thank you for the input, but nobody really answered my question. I wanted to compare generic text editors (like vi and EMACS) to more specific editors (like Bluefish or Code::Blocks). I don't really want to compare vi to EMACS.
Again, thanks for such a quick response. Jordy
JordyD said: Well that was an awfully fast response. Thank you for the input, but nobody really answered my question. I wanted to compare generic text editors (like vi and EMACS) to more specific editors (like Bluefish or Code::Blocks). I don't really want to compare vi to EMACS.
Again, thanks for such a quick response. Jordy Well, vim offers complete keyboard control and powerful macros that I haven't seen anywhere else.
Vim writes my Python code, my PHP code, my XHTML code, my CSS code; hell, even my /etc/sudoers code (with syntax highlighting)
nathangrubb said: Vim writes my Python code, my PHP code, my XHTML code, my CSS code; hell, even my /etc/sudoers code (with syntax highlighting)
Syntax highlighting? I didn't know there was any syntax highlighting. Does it need to be activated? Because I have never seen it done on my system. Is there a way to turn it on?
JordyD said: Syntax highlighting? I didn't know there was any syntax highlighting. Does it need to be activated? Because I have never seen it done on my system. Is there a way to turn it on?
:syntax enable
nathangrubb said:
:syntax enable
My editor tells me that it's not available in this version. :cry:You might need to install vim-full?
JordyD said: My editor tells me that it's not available in this version. :cry:
I believe you need to install the vim-full package first to be able to use syntax highlighting.
OutOfReach said: You might need to install vim-full?
qamelian said: I believe you need to install the vim-full package first to be able to use syntax highlighting.
That did it. Thanks.
SuperSonic4 said: I've never used either of them but nano and kate work for me :]
If you edit the file /etc/nanorc you can turn on some very useful options of nano that are off by default (autoindent, syntax highlighting, spaces for tabs and many many more). It changes nano from a very simple editor that is cumbersome for tasks beyond simple config file editing to a very useful editor to code in.
NetBeans for Java, gedit (with tweaks) or vim for anything else on a small scale, large projects are always in NetBeans.
nathangrubb said: Vim writes my Python code, my PHP code, my XHTML code, my CSS code; hell, even my /etc/sudoers code (with syntax highlighting)
Vim has syntax highlighting for almost everything.
igknighted said: If you edit the file /etc/nanorc you can turn on some very useful options of nano that are off by default (autoindent, syntax highlighting, spaces for tabs and many many more). It changes nano from a very simple editor that is cumbersome for tasks beyond simple config file editing to a very useful editor to code in.
As I said before, nano is excellent. I prefer vim because of its more powerful macros and the two-mode system (my fingers are too short to accurately touch-type the control key ;))
kavon89 said: NetBeans for Java, gedit (with tweaks) or vim for anything else on a small scale, large projects are always in NetBeans.
Netbeans is good, but I just do recreational scripting and it felt over the top to me.
cardinals_fan said: As I said before, nano is excellent. I prefer vim because of its more powerful macros and the two-mode system (my fingers are too short to accurately touch-type the control key ;))
Oh I agree... I use vim over nano myself, I just thought I'd point that out because by default nano looks, well, really plain, and many might not realize what it can do.
FWIW, I do ditch vim and use bluefish for some web stuff. It's got some great code-complete that makes life really easy.
I generally use Vim (actually GVIM, the GUI form). It's probably time I gave Emacs another go actually, and I'll be taking another look at Kate once I'm in KDE 4 land.