NOEXTEHO

I don't care how quickly this video might spread around the internet. I have to make someone else watch this. I don't know why.

(Much like when Lin Swimmer fears he's alienating portions of his audience, I fear I may do the same with this post. But I spent a large chunk of my day thinking about these things, so I'm posting it anyway. I promise my next post will be mindless fun pictures/video.)

I'm a programmer. It's true. Or at least I'd like for it to be true. While I do spend a lot of time writing code, I'm not formally trained, nor am I all that good. But I do think I'm enough of a programmer to care strongly about my text editor. I'm not rich enough or willing enough to buy a text editor (or else I'd probably have TextMate), so all I have to choose from are the free ones. Today, I methodically checked out some of the best free ones for OSX, and here are the results, posted here for you if you're curious... and to remind me why I liked and didn't like certain ones.

Also, if you use any of these, please tell me all about it in the comments.

MacVim
Excluding Notepad++, this is totally my favorite. I want to learn everything about Vim.
(And no, I will not partake in any Emacs vs Vim talks yet. Not until I've learned Vim well enough to kill you in 4 keystrokes, which, I hear, is possible.)

• CON: Can feel a little too much like what it is: a command line program wrapped up for OSX (but it's still more OSX-y than the java-y programs on this list)
  
• PRO: Wicked snappy
• PRO: Wicked powerful
• CON: Takes some getting used to
• PRO: I like tabs
• PRO: C-tags!
• PRO: Lots of plugins and support and customization
  
• CON: No alt-click block selection (Although it might be possible with some key combo I have yet to master)
  

• PRO: Awesome code folding
• PRO: Good 'find' highlighting (like Smultron). Wish it were more like Safari, though.
  
• CON: No tabs, but a (very confusing to me) project tree-thing instead
• Huge. Can be sluggish.
  
• PRO: 'organizer' mode is sort of nice and interesting

• CON: Doesn't strike me as being as powerful as Notepad++ or MacVim
• PRO: Looks pretty good (could use a better color scheme, though)
• CON: Syntax highlighting is not all that great, and sometimes really sucks.
  
• PRO: I like tabs
• PRO: Good 'find' highlighting (like Smultron). Wish it were more like Safari, though.

• CON: no tabs, but a drawer instead
• PRO: Better syntax highlighting than Smultron
• PRO: Feels more powerful than Smultron
• CON: Feels less powerful than MacVIM

• FATAL CON: not osx/cocoa enough (duh! it's for Windows)
• PRO: I like tabs
• PRO: I love this program!!! No idea why, either.
  

• CON: Not osx/cocoa enough
• CON: Plugins are a good idea, but feel sort of not solid
• PRO: C-tags!
• CON: No tabs

• CON: Not osx/cocoa enough
• CON: Feels slow (java-y?)
• PRO: Reminds me of notepad++ (not sure why)
  
• PRO: I like tabs

Lately, I've been here:




In other news, I need a haircut.