Editor

[Ryan M.]

Partially as a joke, although I will be interested in seeing what people say:

What's the best editor for programming? Is it specific to any language/what language? What platform(s) does it run on? Why is it the "best?"

Or, be more thoughful and answer "What makes an editor good for programming?" (or answer any combination of the above. ;))

[Yan Wang]

VIM

It's open source (Read: FREE), supports everything [that you'd need], and is easy to customize.

[Astronouth7303]

Notepad. Supports all languages and compilers!

[Yan Wang]

Notepad. Supports all languages and compilers!

And native only to Windows...

[phrontist]

Notepad. Supports all languages and compilers!

Agh no!!!

Have I taught you nothing! :D

Notepad is the work of the devil! :D

Come to the Open-Source side!

Oh, back to the topic:
vi, vim, pico

[Astronouth7303]

And native only to Windows...
Gimme a break. Macintosh has simple text, and you can probably write one in java. I mean, when learning a language, it's the second program you make (after "Hello world").
[EDIT=What's the Linux equivalent? or does everyone write their own?]

[Joshua May]

MICROSOFT WORD!!!

j/k please don't hurt me. I use notepad for all of my programming needs.

[Astronouth7303]

Seriousely, I just use the native editor usually, and notepad/wordpad when I can't.
VB=VB
VC++=VC++
NQC=BrixCC
PIC C=MPLAB
PBASIC=PASIC
Psuedo Code=Notepad (Errr...)
html=Frontpage/notepad
bat=notepad

GET THE IDEA?

[mtrawls]

html=Frontpage

I think you'd be better off with Word, despite previous comments to the contrary ;)

[Joshua May]

html=frontpage

The only time I ever use frontpage is to help visualize layouts, especially tables used inside tables, which can get a bit complicated when hardcoding.

[Astronouth7303]

The only time I ever use frontpage is to help visualize layouts, especially tables used inside tables, which can get a bit complicated when hardcoding.
Allow me to repeat:
html=Frontpage/notepad

[piotrm]

Wow! I can't believe noone mentioned emacs yet. I use emacs for everything. Granted that I mostly use perl (see cperl-mode in emacs), but if I used other languages, I'd use emacs for them as well. Emacs runs on pretty much anything I am pretty sure. The "unixes" are fine with it. There is also a windows version. It comes with many modes for different languages that include syntax high-lighting and other fun stuff. It also recognizes CVS files and has keys for cvs commands. A lot of people use emacs for a lot more. For example email and irc or whatever else one might want to do on a computer. Sometimes it is refered to as "editor and kitchen sink".

[Ryan M.]

Wow! I can't believe noone mentioned emacs yet....Finally, someone else who actually uses it. (I can't stand vi/vim personally. Modal editing... ick.)

[Ryan M.]

Put your votes on the poll! :)

And for my vote of "other," I'll say I use NetBeans IDE a lot. (Me likes Java.) It's a memory hog though. 90 mb. And all it is a fancy text editor. :)

[Joe Ross]

Finally, someone else who actually uses it. (I can't stand vi/vim personally. Modal editing... ick.)

Try evim, then

[Ryan M.]

Try evim, thenNever heard of it. Thanks for the tip. :)

[Phil_Lutz]

PFE or Programmer's File Editor

http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?500000017700

FreeWare program for Win 95/98/ME and have run it on NT/2000

Macro library functionality
Multiple File Open
Language templates or build your own
Smart indenting
the list goes on....

Excellent tool