In the past few days I’ve come across posts of several programmers switching back to VIM (in most cases, specifically to MacVim). As some have pointed out, this seems predominantly in the Ruby community, which tends to be fad-driven.

I’ve thought about giving VIM a shot. But I won’t end up doing it. The trouble is, my work has changed and I don’t get to program often. (It’s a shame, really.) The potential bump in productivity for switching just isn’t there, and I’d be left with just the headaches.

I really like TextMate, although I don’t use many of its features. (e.g., here) I’m just not programming often enough anymore to pick them up (or remember the ones I used to know), and because I don’t use one language consistently it’s typically not worth the bother of learning the snippets either (Although Zen HTML available for many editors, looks cool). I don’t need many changes (although some speedup would be nice), and development has stalled, with TextMate 2 almost taking on the status of vaporware. The developer is apparently hard at work, but the TM2 release date has become something of a programmers’ inside joke. (here and here)

SublimeText

My biggest complaint with TextMate is that I’d like to use a similar editing environment on the rare occasions I’m forced to use other operating systems (read: Windows). Enter SublimeText. It’s smart, it’s clean, it’s fast, and it’s compatible with TextMate themes and bundles. And, importantly, it’s stable and actively edited. My only complaint is its relatively steep price compared to other editors—but I think it’s worth it. The developer’s next project is making SublimeText cross-platform (must be a registered member to preview). I enjoy using SublimeText on the rare occasions I’m not tethered to Visual Studio. (If nothing else, it makes an exceptional Notepad replacement, as I’m constantly keeping lists and notes in plain text files.)

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Posted in Computers, Programming