Text editor or IDE?

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Which do you prefer for programming? I personally hate IDEs, and haven't touched one since I learned to use Vim.

I like eclipse currently. Primarily because of all the tools and support it has - for example cold fusion builder , flex builder plug-ins. Then it has all the Java, PHP, xdebug and svn/cvs stuff.

I use a simple text editor mostly. I work in Linux (both home and work), so I use either mcedit (comes with mc, the file manager) or jedit. Sometimes I use gedit. Xfce's mousepad is a little underpowered - too much like Windows Notepad.

Generally speaking, apart from syntax highlighting, I don't want the editor to be too intelligent. I want the editor to do what I ask it to, not what it thinks "I" want.

Way too often, "intelligent" editors do what the programmer who wrote it wanted, which is not what I want. Even with mcedit, I have to undo some of the programmer's choices (like visible spaces and tabs - shudder). IDEs are just too complicated. I like things simple, uncluttered. I hate having so many tools that I don't know where to start or how to do the simple things simply. I don't want to have to create a "project" just to edit a single text file. I tried Netbeans, but it was overkill. Eclipse just looks like more of the same.

I find vi and emacs too arcane for real use. A simple full screen editor like mcedit works fine for me. When I was programming in the Windows world, I really liked TextPad - it was just right.

If you are a programmer, an editor or IDE is a really personal choice. It is your primary tool and reflects how you think and function. A comfortable editor allows you to do magic ... your way.

Vim. Sometimes Gedit if I'm feeling lazy. Lately I've been playing with Geany a bit- it's nice to just hit f8 to compile, and having a shell and several text editor tabs together in the same window. I have in the past attempted to use Eclipse and Xcode. Eclipse was way too heavy-duty; all I wanted to do was type up some code. Xcode, well, I couldn't even figure out what to do to start programming in it.

I just use gedit. Provides a simple, tabbed interface with syntax highlighting. My thoughts pretty much agree with "one-A-N" almost exactly.

I used to like kate, but it was kinda buggy and did some weird things, and I have a mostly GTK+ desktop and I kinda prefer the things to match a bit (not ridiculous about it... I do use Opera.).

SciTe you can't get simpler than that.

I just use gedit. If it doesnt do something I want, there are a million plug ins. Or I can just write one.

Ah! I even bought the full version. Those were the days.

The only editor that makes sense is vim... except... I have a habit of dropping a text file into gedit occasionally, when I want to copy/paste its contents. I've never bothered to figure out if I can do that from inside vim.

The best way to do it is to press v or V to enter visual mode, select the area you want using the movement keystrokes, then type y or "<key>y to yank it. Then paste with p or "<key>p.

No. Not copy/paste within vim - copy/paste to elsewhere. And I'm meaning large chunks of text... not single screenfuls.

oh...thanks. I thought IDE was an old type of hard drive... There's too many TLA's out there...

They are still easier than FLAs or FLAs. SLAs and SLAs are impossible, but luckily quite rare.

... both. I was bitten by MPW back in the eighties and I never recovered.

Eclipse is nice for keeping projects together, and running ant and maven and subversion when I need them.

JEdit is quicker and easier for tracking through files, doing bulk searches and changes, and fiddling around with formats. And for keeping the IDE honest.

I found Jed to work well with my style. It emulates Emacs without excessive features. It's a very practical CLI editor.

I like gedit with the terminal plugin. Sometimes I wish that gedit would change the terminal's directory to where I want to execute stuff, but I realise that would probably require telepathy because it is not necessarily where the code document is located.

This script is quite good for instantly starting a session of work, or making it look like you have been at work for ages:

cd ~/Documents/Client/Revised
firefox Client_home.html &
nautilus ~/Documents/Client/Revised &
gedit Client.sh lookup.sh lookup.csv Client_home.html

I also use the R plugin, which spawns R consoles and graphics in separate windows.

For me, part of the reason I use Vim rather than XCode, JGrasp, or Visual Studio (all of which I've tried), is because I'm a major command line junkie. When I work in the command line, I feel like I am communicating directly with my computer, rather than having a GUI act as the middleman and translate everything between us.

Another thing about the command line is that many people find it arcane and hard to use, which gives me the sense that I am doing something few others can do, and induces a sense of mystique.

Finally - and this may surprise some people - I find command lines easier to use. For someone like me, who has difficulty translating verbal instructions and applying them to a visual interface (I suspect this may be an aspie thing), it's much easier to type a command given in a tutorial than it is to search for a button on the screen. CLIs to me are more logical, and there is a beautiful simplicity to them, despite their awesome power.

The main advantage of GUIs is you don't need to read a tutorial or documentation to know what to do; you just have to poke around and see what everything does. But I prefer learning something through a tutorial. I like learning new things, and I like things that have a good learning curve to them.

I don't know what is with this fear everyone has of interacting with computers in only text. When you read a novel, you're using a text-only environment. Most people I would suspect read at least a couple text-only books every year. Why not a CLI?

Still, I wouldn't recommend a CLI to the average user, as most of the things you can do with it are things they would not find useful. For me, learning the Unix command line has provided me with a wide array of programming tools, plus the ability to automate certain tasks, and the ability to use open-source software that only works from the terminal, like for instance MySQL. None of these would be useful to someone who only uses a computer for writing reports and spreadsheets, storing their pr0n collections, and playing PC games.