response 17 of 32:

Dec 11 22:06 UTC 2010

resp:13 I thought you were an emacs user?

resp:15 I agree completely: the right tool for the right job.  Frankly,
I've always found it a little silly that people get into religious arguments
about things like text editors.

response 19 of 32:

Dec 12 04:27 UTC 2010

Vim has its own scripting language called, as you might think, Vim
Script.  It can be used to control the editor.  It's actually a pretty
full programming language, including variables, loops, functions, and
if/else logic.  It is also the language used in your .vimrc/.gvimrc
files.

vim script looks something like this:

    :echo "*** Running SAS..." 
    let returntxt = system("/usr/local/sas -nodms " .
    shellescape(expand("%:p")))

The last two lines should be all one line and come from a vim script
function I wrote for running SAS on the file being edited.  Run vim
and do :help usr_41.

Also there are commands built in when you compile vim with support for
a given language, say perl.  Thus, you can execute perl commands on the
buffer being edited (and btw, Vim/gVim have tabbed editing and multiple
buffer/file capability so you can switch buffers and stuff like that). 

A couple commands are :pe[rl] {cmd} and :[range]perld[o] {cmd}.  For
example, :perl VIM::Msg("hello world") will print the message (at the
bottom of the screen)--from the vim help.  Or :perldo s/My stuff/Your
stuff/ (which goes through every line of the current buffer and does
the perl command (perldo) s///.  Or :perldo $_ = reverse($_);1 (from
the vim help).  There are something like 32 functions provided, such
as VIM::Msg(), to help run perl commands in vim.  Run vim and do :help
if_perl and the scroll down to Using the Perl interface.

As in vi, in vim you can also call external commands like :r !date or
:!ls or external commands with movement !}sort.

So there are multiple ways to operate on a file being edited.  And if
you don't want to learn anything much about vim script, you can use
perl (or python 2/3, ruby, mzscheme, or lua) or unix commands.  And of
course, the usual vi and ex commands.

response 21 of 32:

Dec 13 15:20 UTC 2010

Aquamacs wasn't to your liking?

response 23 of 32:

Dec 13 16:33 UTC 2010

Huh.  Why not, if I may ask?  I find it's a comfortable environment for things
like that.

response 25 of 32:

Dec 18 15:38 UTC 2010

I am not a full-time programmer, and might work on 3 or 4 programming
projects per year. In between that time, I lose a lot of familiarity
with languages, and so for me an important feature of any programming
text editor is syntax checking, and text highlighting.

re 2: I've been checking out SciTE, and so far am liking it quite a bit.

response 27 of 32:

Dec 18 18:03 UTC 2010

What is nice is being able to "tweak" the syntax highlighting for a
language.  Again, emacs and vim do a pretty job of that, too.  Some
editors have syntax highlighting but it is very limited in what it can
do.  Having the ability to add a new language for highlighting is also a
good feature.  Not all editors support that.

response 29 of 32:

Jan 1 02:34 UTC 2013

When I am working in a text-only environment, such as an SSH session, or
if I am doing a quick edit that does not justify starting a full
programming editor, I tend to revert back to VI. When I am working on
something larger, I usually revert to Komodo (Active State). It works
well, is the same in Windows or Linux, and is language-aware, without
being the bloated monster that is Jedit/Eclipse/Rational RSA. I also
like that it doesn't force you into the model of a project, if all you
are working on is a single code or a single module. 

response 31 of 32:

Jan 6 22:25 UTC 2013

resp: 30 - The editor-only version (which is still pretty
fully-featured)  is free. The IDE version, which integrates debugging,
source code  management and a few other features is about 300$ as of Jan
2013. I have  been happy with the free version.   -DTK