Sory, I was looking through the topics and I wasn't sure if this was the best place to post this question:

I was wondering, out of curiosity, which software everyone was using to code their scripts in. I do mostly sh/ksh and my favorite has always been EditPlus because it is small, fast, yet powerful. Plus other users in the community have coded syntax highlighting for languages that EditPlus hasn't included.

My two main concerns are:
1. Simplicity (I tend to like souped up versions of notepad, which is what EditPlus seems to be).
2. Syntax highlighting.

I posted this because perhaps there's an even better program I should be using. Or perhaps someone has a very good syntax highlighting file that I haven't found yet.

i tend to stick to vi since it usually comes with the os build by default, it doesn't need an x-server to run and it can do what i need without a lot of overhead ...

while the syntax highlighting could be useful and could make my life more efficient when i'm coding --- it's not required ... and i don't want to get dependent on something that might not be there on the next system i'm working on ...

You can also use vim this is a buffed up version of vi you can get this to do Syntax highlighting. But i just stick with vi as well..

P

IMO any editor you use should have these features:
1. syntax highlighting for a variety of languages; allows creation of custom hightlighting
2. programmable (or macros)
3. support files from different platofrms (UX, DOS, etc)

vi meets some of those requirments, so it's okay in a pinch. I really like UltraEdit because it supports syntax highlighting for many dozens of languages/environments.
The bad part is it runs on Windows - I think there is an X version coming out, dunno.

I use vi about 99.9% of the time. The rest of the time is when I don't have a terminal open and I just pop Windows Notepad open for a quick note.

On Mac...

Smultron. It's free and works pretty good. The only thing missing is remote (FTP) editing. The macro facility uses the shell so any Unix commands are available. That part is really slick.

However, when I drop to the terminal window, I like ed because it's simple and every system has it on there.

But I'm a newbie and an idiot to all this so there's probably a better way.

I use emacs for any complicated scripting. I used to put it in edt emulation mode but I've gotten out of that habit. I learned edt editor on a pdp-11/23.
I use vi/vim for editing system files and minor edits.