June 1, 2009 On Text Editors
A web developer’s workflow hinges on their text editor. For me, TextMate is the perfect text editor. I use it both for web development and casual text manipulation. I like that it’s both powerful — with shortcuts, bundles and expandability — and light weight — in that it launches quickly and performs actions fast.
I’ve tried, and have licensed copies for, both Coda and Espresso, and I really like both, but not enough to switch from TextMate. I’ve been thinking about why, and I think it’s because I’ve never been educated on how to actually use them. I’ve read all the marketing copy, watched the developer screencasts, and even tried both in real-world situations. I must be doing something wrong, though, because I still don’t see the appeal over TextMate.
For instance, in TextMate, to “Insert Open/Close Tag” and add a paragraph, I type: ⌥+<, then tab, then write my paragraph, then tab again (to place the I-beam back outside the tag). Besides the actual paragraph, it takes three keystrokes. In Espresso there’s a similar “Insert Tag” icon in the menu bar, but no equivalent keystroke command, and even that doesn’t allow you to tab out of the tag. I haven’t found command like this in Coda.
So am I missing something?
Update: Indeed, I was missing something. Thanks to Ian Beck, I’ve discovered TEA, and the powerful potential of “sugars” for Espresso. I’ve posted a video demonstration evaluating how Espresso and TEA are used. Very nice.
I’ve tried Espresso and Coda too and found the same thing, while they both have some interesting features over Textmate they both lack that real programmer’s depth that Textmate has. I’m a relatively new Mac user, having programmed for ages using vi and other lesser editors (like VisualStudio), so my measure of real is different than the kids these days, but I do think that these newer editors are focused on a generation of click programmers.
And that said, I think Textmate has become a bit like vi. It’s search features (even inline) lag behind Apple’s latest tools (oh, what I would do for the Safari inline search and yellow box highlight!), and its code completion leaves a lot to be desired (CSSEdit has it beat for what it does). But overall, Textmate is deep and excellent.
It may be too that these newer editors are just immature siblings that will come around given time. Who knows?
Bruce
June 1, 2009