The text editors in a lot of IDE's are moronic. Being designed to edit code beyond anything else, they contain features specifically designed for certain languages and formatting styles, but more often than not, programmers end up fighting these features rather than using them. So, even when they use an IDE, a lot of programmers prefer to edit the code in something else.

Using an IDE also forces you to do things a certain way. KDevelop forces me to use automake, for instance... This is a big problem because I hate automake. It's just that bad. KDevelop and automake singlehandedly gave me the impetus to learn the art of makefiles.

Also, a lot of the time, a full IDE is overkill. Know any good IDE's for bash? Fat chance. Do any text editors have syntax highlighting for bash? Plenty!

Also, not everyone uses the same IDE. I'm not about to buy CodeWarrior for the privilege of editing someone else's source code, and want to avoid cramming my own IDE-of-choice down their throat.

Lastly, some people, for some reason, find smaller, tighter programs easier to use than all-singing-all-dancing-mash-everything-together-into-one-giant-interface monstrosities. I can't imagine why.

yes, I understand all that.. smaller is better. Large IDEs are greedy, annoying to learn your way around.. a nusiance just learning how to compile the program within the IDE!!

However, a debugger is very important!! Setting breakpoints. Watching variables. A text editor, as far as I nkow, doesn't offer this. I have heard that emacs has a debugger, but a poor one.

Not just a nuisance learning to compile inside it, it's even more of a hassle learning to compile outside it.

Emacs is a fine operating system, but I prefer linux.

Did you check that program I linked, the Data Display Debugger? It's got all that good stuff you mention without an IDE. I find it essential for debugging any code that isn't my own.

So you can have an editor that's good at editing and a debugger that's good at debugging, instead of one glorious hole that's not really good at anything.

I'm a bit of a newbie...and started in again with unix duties as part of my new job.
I promptly set up a SUSE box..(is SUSE ok around here?)
I then remembered having used Emacs once, and liked it...

So, I downloaded the gz & after about 1/2 hour of getting "you are missing this frikin lib . now you're missing that frikin lib..." messages I gave up.

Either this linux installation is missing tons of libraries, (SUSE Pro 9.2) or there is still not a user friendly means of installing packages to date on a Linux machine...

However, being a self described newbie, I'm open to having gone about it wrongly..

I really would like to get emacs up & going...
Rich

Well, silly me..
I musta been going aboot it the wrong way..
Just went to 'Software' via Yast & it asked for CD#3...
man, what was I thunkin....

DDD - data display debugger, looks interesting. I hadn't heard of it before..


I had heard of "the omniscient debugger" for java.. but that's not really relevant.

I found that the Eclipse IDE wasn't so annoying.. plus of course the good debugger it has in it. Though I can see why you'd prefer a text editor, it is slimmer. And still ess annoyign, even nice!

But, it's not just the debugger..
Also, IDEs have a feature, i'm not sure what it is called. But a text editor probably wouldn't do this. It has a suggestion style autocomplete feature.. It knows all your methods(like functions/procedures) and variable names. And as you type a name, the drop down menu shows all the possibilities. This is very useful particularly in a language like java where you have these long identifiers, like
ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException, FileNotFoundException , IllegalARgumentException. There are many of these things.. This feature isn't about creating an abbreviation for them. But suggesting what method you are calling.
Also, when you have an object, and you want to call some method, then as soon as you type object1. it'll list all the methods(functions/procedures) of object 1, with their parameters and types.
And this is also useful because variables are case sensitive. And can be quite long.

And also, you can browse around your code quite quickly within a file, because it bookmarks all the methods/functions, so you can just click the name of the function listed in one window, and in the other window it jumps to that portion of code.

For Windows, I am surprised no one has mentioned TextPad.

It has the usual libraries that makes colors for various types of code. You can also create your own color scheme if you have a more obscure need.

You can search & replace using regular expressions. You can search and mark each line where it found an occurrence, and then act upon the marked lines. It saves about a dozen of your recent search strings and replace strings for quick reuse.

It comes with some predefined snippets of code that you doubleclick to insert into the current document (examples are html code and ANSI codes). You can also save your own code snippets if you have some that you use all the time.

You can select multiple areas in a single copy operation. You can turn on "block" select mode, which lets you select any square of text anywhere (handy when you want to delete a whole column of data that runs vertically down a file).

You can record macros.

I sound like a commercial for this software! Honestly, I don't work for TextPad, I'm just a loyal user!

I like to use nano, it's nice and lightweight. Vi is also good, I need to learn the more advanced features though. Pretty much anything but Emacs.

Emacs got owned.

vi might be a powerful editor but when u cant use backspace n hv to shift between different modes by pressing escape, dont u find it maddening? Is there an easier way to delete ur mistake while u r typing?

I just take the shortcut: use notepad n then copy paste in vi

Hardly! What I find maddening is that ESC and i,j,k,l don't work the same in MS Word or Outlook.
Your VI can't use backspace while your'e typing?
I hope you're kidding. Certainly learning how to use a few keystrokes is far easier than opening a document in notepad, selecting and copying to the clipboard, opening a terminal session on UNIX if it's not already, entering VI, potentially erasing every line in the file, entering into INSERT mode, and then pasting.

Or when I'm in a chat or composing an e-mail in Notes and I hit escape so I can 'j' over a few characters and correct something and my chat window disappears or have notes pop up the "do you want to send, save, discard, cancel" dialog box

^a^c<alt>+<Tab>i<shift>+<ins>



Carl

can you or anybody tell me how to make backspace work in vi? when i press backspace, it simply moves one place to the left.

How do you know it's not working?

Try this: a) start INSERT mode, b) type "abcdefghijkl", c) hit backspace 3x, d) hit ESCAPE to leave INSERT mode. You should see the last three characters disappear.

Backspace on most UNIX vi editors that I work on is not visibly destructive but when you hit ESCAPE, the backspace delete becomes evident. I haven't used VIM for a few months now and I can't recall whether it behaves the same or not.

There is a reason why most seasoned vi users (at least from my point of view), who have learned how to utilize its considerable functionality, chose vi over other editors. It's not because they don't like other editors per se but, rather, it's more attributed to vi's utility and availabilty.

It does in Vim 7, only you see the characters disappear in Vim.