What does your favorite text editor say about you?
Remember this post? I’m doing it again. I once said that your choice of a web browser reveals something about your personality. Same can be said about the choice of your preferred text editor. Tell me what is the default editor on your system, and I will tell you what kind of person you are.
Vim or Vi
You are a minimalist at heart, but you value raw power of a sophisticated, and yet simple editor. You hate to waste key strokes. You laugh derisively at the fools fighting with their silly Notepad like editors. You either use a traditional unix keyboard or you switched around Ctrl and Caps Lock so that they are in their popper places. Chances are that you might be (or have been) a sysadmin. You think that Emacs is not a text editor, but a fucking operating system with a built in kitchen sink, and a circus tent. You might as well use an IDE.
Emacs
Your choice of text editor was simple. You wanted the most powerful, and most extensible editor on Earth. And you can write a formal mathematical proof that Emacs is that editor. You are a lisp hacker and you are not afraid to use it. In fact, when you watched Matrix you were disappointed that the streaming code on the screens was not lisp. You still think that the back-end and AI of the Matrix is done in that language. You might have (or are working towards) a PHD.
Pico or Nano
As everyone knows, Pico is an acronym which stands for “I can’t figure out vi and Emacs is crazy”. You do try to be as hard-core as your Vi and Emac’s friends but you just can’t deal with their funky editors. You are ok trading off all their power for familiar simplicity because you don’t need advanced features. All you need is a working text editor. And Pico/Nano is just that. No frills, no bells, no whistles. Just rock solid functionality. You think that people who put time and effort into “mastering” a text editor have way to much time on their hands. It is very likely that you are using Pine for your email. Pine of course stands for “can’t figure out Mutt”.
Notepad
It actually never occurred to you to try a different text editor. Notepad was always there, and you never needed more. All the extra features in the other editors are just making them slower and harder to use. Notepad does what it was designed to do, and doesn’t get in your way.
Gedit
You are a bit like the Notepad user, but you use Ubuntu or Fedora instead of Windows. Gedit is the default, and that’s what you use. It is completely sufficient for editing small config files, and you never really needed stuff like syntax highlighting. It never occurred to you that you could use anything else. The KDE practice of starting names of all their applications with k annoys you.
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is not a text editor. You should not be allowed near a computer. In fact you are the cancer that is killing the internet. Kill yourself.
Kate
You are a hard code KDE user. Kate is not only a robust editor with syntax highlighting - it is also a fully functional KDE component. This means that you can use it to edit files on remote servers in place by simply using the fish:// or sftp:// protocol in the file dialog. Because of this you wouldn’t change this editor for any other. In fact, almost every single application that you use on daily basis starts with a K: kontact, kmail, koffice, kopete, kdevelop, konqueror, konsole and etc.. You try to use as few non KDE apps as possible. GTK applications piss you off because they clash with your interface, use counter-intuitive file dialogs, and look awkward and unpolished.
Ed
Ed is the standard text editor. Enough said. You are in fact, too fucking awesome for this article. You have yet to meet a person who would be worth your respect. Every person you ever worked with was a fucking clueless n00b. You are a BOFH and proud of it. On the systems you administrate you symlink vi, emacs and nano to ed just to watch the lusers squirm in their seats and hit Ctrl+C repeatedly. You are likely to have a big bushy beard, and are probably wearing a T-shirt with a cryptic joke that only people with unix background will understand.
Notepad2, Notepad++ and etc..
You like the simplicity of Notepad, but you wanted a bit more. Not to much - just some syntax highlighting and maybe having line numbers displayed on the margin. You do use the editor to write some code, but you like to keep it simple. You are not a Linux user so you have no clue what that whole Emacs vs Vi thing is all about. You also hate IDE’s - they are bloated and get in the way of doing your work. Simplicity is your mantra.
TextMate
You tried many different text editors. You could never get a hang of vi and Emacs. You think it’s a bit crazy to spend time and effort learning how to use them. You were dissatisfied with every single editor on the market. They were either to difficult to use, to simplistic, or too bloated. Then you found TextMate and it felt like an extension of your body. It did for text editing what OSX did for operating systems. You love this editor so much, that you actually don’t mind it’s not free. For you it’s worth every penny. You don’t mind being the only guy in your town who actually paid for a text editir. You are a smug Mac user, and proud of it. You have recurring fantasies in which you strangle Justin Long with you Mighty Mouse cord.
Cream
You love vim but you can’t deal with it’s sharp learning curve, and funky key bindings. So you took the easy way out, and got the best of both worlds - the power of Vim, and standard key bindings for the most common functions. When hanging out with your Vim buddies you usually forget to tell them about this and act as if you were using the real thing. Because in essence you are. Your version just has the added key bindings. You would be embarrassed if anyone found out abut it though.
SciTe
Your text editor is lightweight, full featured, extensible and cross platform. In addition, it can work as a stand-alone executable which requires no installation. Fits perfectly with all your other portable tools on your USB thumb drive. You also love how SciTE let’s you write Lua scripts to extend it’s functionality. You take your text editor choice very seriously. You like tinkering, and minimalistic, portable applications.
TextPad or EditPlus
You use your editor for programming. What you want is something like a mini IDE with the ability to launch compilers from within the editor, and capture their output, but without the bloat. You value simplicity. Scite was to funky to you, and choices like Notepad2 were bit too basic. Your current editor has everything that you can need, and you probably won’t ever need more. You suffer from a common affliction known as IDE phobia. Whenever you want to make yourself puke all you have to do is to just imagine working in Visual Studio and/or Eclipse. You think that all the Vi and Emacs people are even more crazy than the poor misguided souls who use IDE’s.
Joe
Jey, 1987 called and they want their Word Star key bindings back!
Edit
You are one of the last representatives of the dying breed of MS DOS enthusiasts. You are master at batch scripting, and you wrote dozens of scripts, and small applications to streamline your work on Windows. You are one of the last few people who knows how to squeeze out every bit of functionality out of cmd.exe. You are to windows what a hard-core vi/ed user is to unix. You know almost all there is to know about windows, and all your systems run blazing fast and efficiently. You strip all your windows installations down to their bare bones, move around important files, and optimize everything. You think that Windows 2000 was the best OS that came out from Microsoft. You run a mix of win NT, win95-98 and win2k boxes at home but you don’t own Windows XP. Vista scares you. It signifies an end of an era and a sad victory of bloat and eye candy over simplicity and functionality.
Q10
You are one of those smug assholes who thinks it is hip, cool and retro to use a full screen editor. “Uh, oh! I’m a big time writer. I can’t be distracted by a taskbar and a clock when I write.” Give me a break. You probably also use words like blogosphere and blogerati and consider yourself a journalist. Sigh…
–
That’s all I have for now. Feel free to “remind me” about your favorite editor that I omitted in the comments. Also please note that this is all good natured humor. So feel free to complain that judging people by their text editor is stupid, shallow and etc. But that just means you are not getting it and you will be laughed at.
Related Posts:
August 14th, 2007 at 1:06 pm (5648) [Quote]
lol!! You know, I discovered your blog from a link on another blog mentioning your post about the web browsers…
I have to admit, though, that I use Word sometimes… (A door opens… What? ah!!! no!! Please! stop! don’t kill me!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaa….)
Ok, it’s rare but I use it. Most of the time I use netbeans, Delphi Editor, or Notepad2.
You didn’t mention OpenOffice or StarOffice…
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 1:19 pm (5649) [Quote]
I didn’t mention them because they are not text editors. They are WYSIWIG word processing suites that are perfectly acceptable for writing essays, reports and letters to your grandma.
The word comment was aimed at people who can’t tell the difference. For example, if I ask them what is their default text editor, they say Word, when in fact they should probably say notepad or something like that.
The worst are the people who insist using word for everything - for example write code or HTML in it because they just don’t know any better. I swear, I once knew a guy who wrote his Java homework assignment in Word, saved it as .doc and then could not figure out why it would not compile.
In addition people who think that using Word’s “Save as Web Page” feature can be considered “web design” also need to die.
In general though, I don’t think that using Word where appropriate is something that should be condemned.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 1:34 pm (5651) [Quote]
At least the ones using StarOffice or OpenOffice deserve the credit for being Linux users…
But you are 110% right: Word for code, HTML pages, image editing, etc… is just plain stupid!
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 2:03 pm (5652) [Quote]
[…] Ich wusste es schon immer: der genutzte Texteditor ist ein Stück Lifestyle und sagt viel über seinen Benutzer aus. Bei mir stimmts schon - bin gerne ein Minimalist. Vor meinem jetzigen Texteditor wusste ich aber nicht viel mit vi anzufangen und habe einen einfachen Editor wie nano genutzt. […]
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 2:15 pm (5653) [Quote]
Ricardo said:
Not necessarily. Some Open Office users are Windows people.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 2:24 pm (5654) [Quote]
You missed the one I use (and of course consider the best): JEDIT.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 2:34 pm (5656) [Quote]
Oh shit! Totally forgot Jedit!
There is going to be like 67 posts here with editors that I know about, but couldn’t remember at the time I wrote this. LOL
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 3:17 pm (5657) [Quote]
For some reason, my users like to use nedit. As for myself, I am a typical UNIX sysadmin and will only use vi. At one time I used to use emacs, but being a sysadmin converted me since vi comes with all UNIX/Linux ditros (I know, ed does as well . . . ).
Of course, all editor wars turn out something like this: LINKY
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 3:22 pm (5658) [Quote]
Bah. BvTaa beat me to it. Anyways, when in school, I was a Pico/Nano guy. Once I needed more versatility in my editor, I made the jump to jEdit and Vim. If I need something to make a quick open and close edit, I typically use Vim. If I’m doing something bigger, like a LaTeX document for example, I’ll use jEdit. I’ll actually use jEdit’s HyperSearch to find files or text in files versus Windows build-in file finder. I find it way more powerful and much faster at accomplishing its task.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 4:02 pm (5659) [Quote]
Mousepad, the XFCE default text editor!!!
Posted using(Just kidding, after all it does nothing more than Gedit
–
Anyway, I’m not a developer (except some web stuff), so my editor of choice doesn’t have to be so powerful. When I simply need to organize some ideas I got I prefer a wiki kind of editor. My favourite is zim, simply beautiful.
–
I saved this page on my HD, because I fear it will be under digg-effect in the next hours…
August 14th, 2007 at 4:12 pm (5660) [Quote]
Best line evar: I edited inodes by had with magnets! LOLOL!
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 4:46 pm (5662) [Quote]
I have slowly stopped using Emacs in favor of Kate. I love editing my web pages without having to go to Konqueror to FTP and such… in fact, I never use FTP clients anymore. Sarcasm or not, GNOME/GTK+ does have weird file save dialogs and looks ugly. Luckily KDE at least allows me to apply its interface to GTK+ apps to some degree.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 4:50 pm (5664) [Quote]
gedit really does have syntax highlighting.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 4:57 pm (5665) [Quote]
haha. at least joe made the list!! it was the only text editor that i remembered the name of when i installed linux the first time, and i’ve stuck with it since.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 4:58 pm (5666) [Quote]
Jake - this is precisely one of the reasons why I like KDE so much.
Daniel Lucraft said:
Oops, I guess it just shows that I haven’t used Gnome in a while. Last time I used it (on a 3-4 year old machine) it didn’t really highlight anything so I assumed it didn’t have any.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 5:04 pm (5667) [Quote]
I use vim for everything but programming, it just doesn’t feel right for me yet, I have to find some time to configure it and make it more confortable, so I’m using anjuta for that, that’s an ide but everything I use from it is the editor and the compile key, so I’m kind of looking for “the editor”, I actually started used anjuta because the semester just started and I need to code my ass off.
Posted usingOh!, and gedit is quite more than what you people are saying, it not only has syntax highlighting, it has… themed syntax highlighting! (don’t search it in your ubuntu, the theme part will come with gnome 2.20)… now seriously, it’s a pretty featured editor, and the plugins can do a lot more, there’s code snippets (template like things that I’d love to have in anjuta or vim), a python object explorer, terminal, file browser, and a lot more.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:06 pm (5668) [Quote]
As I just recently exclaimed my love for GEdit, I feel the need to come over and defend it here… one word: Plugins!
It’s a great text editor that has syntax highlighting, snippets, regex search, integrated shell/python console, bracket matching, etc. It’s light, flexible and can be tweaked how you want it, works with Gnome’s virtual filesystem as well, so I don’t even have to mount ftp or sftp directories to access them from within the editor.
GEdit may be the notepad of Gnome/Ubuntu, but it’s quickly tweakable to be a lot more.
:-)
-Russ
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 5:12 pm (5669) [Quote]
you forgot the obvious one. real hackers don’t use any of those, they write their own.
Posted usingmine is fred.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:32 pm (5670) [Quote]
You know, Kate isn’t the only editor that can access remote files via ftp, ssh, or other protocols. Emacs has been doing that since before Kate was born.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 6:06 pm (5671) [Quote]
I guess I owe gedit users an apology. I didn’t realize that this editor was so extensible and versatile.
Alan Shutko said:
Well, Emacs was pretty much doing *everything* under the sun since the beginning of time. Emacs can be used for drawing, playing games, fetching email, and etc.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 6:08 pm (5672) [Quote]
I think your post is biased towards Vi users
That said, if it was me writing it it would probably be biased towards Nano
However the editor I use depends on the OS I’m using. On Linux I can use Vi, but I find I can do everything faster in Nano. On Windows I like to use a basic “text” editor, but with a few extras like syntax highlighting and proper word-wrap/indenting etc, so I use EditPad Pro or TextPad (depending on what language of code I’m editing). I do use Dreamweaver (code-view only, as I can’t stand WYSIWYG) occasionally, but only as it has a built-in FTP client to update web pages quickly.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 6:10 pm (5673) [Quote]
A quick off-topic note: Your browser recognition plugin detects Safari incorrectly - it should say: 3.0.3 (522.12.1), rather than just 522.12.1
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 6:52 pm (5674) [Quote]
Fr3d said:
I don’t know - I didn’t purposefully try to bias it towards vi. I tried my best to be objective. When I did the browser thing people said I was Opera user when in fact I’m a die hard Firefox person. It just came out that way.
That said, I do use vi…
Fr3d said:
Hmm… It might be a good time to update that plugin.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 6:53 pm (5675) [Quote]
I vented my feelings about using Word for code at
http://toolsmiths.blogspot.com/2007/06/word-doesnt-play-nicely-with-co de.html
For me, it’s emacs for writing, compiling and debugging code across multiple platforms. grep, find for searching trees from within emacs. Language modes for syntax highlighting, paren matching etc. The only thing I haven’t found from other IDEs is easy refactoring support. If I’m on a box without emacs, then ed or sed is fast and simple.
Now onto what says about me:
Bushy beard - shaved it off after the second kid.
Posted usingUnix t-shirt - gave it to my brother
PhD - it’s a fair cop.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:25 pm (5678) [Quote]
SlickEdit. Fast, extensible, multiplatform. Great, great editor. Costs a bundle, but my boss pays. When I paid, I used UltraEdit.
And if I have to do C#, I still use Visual Studio.
Posted usingAugust 14th, 2007 at 10:34 pm (5681) [Quote]
Oh shit! You totally forgot Jedit!
Posted usingAugust 15th, 2007 at 7:29 pm (5685) [Quote]
uuhm.. im a VI user… but.. nano/pico ????
Posted usingAugust 15th, 2007 at 7:41 pm (5686) [Quote]
dezent said:
Yeah? What about them?
Posted usingAugust 15th, 2007 at 9:12 pm (5688) [Quote]
ergh… i r using Corel WordPerfect as my text editor?
Posted using;)
August 15th, 2007 at 9:13 pm (5689) [Quote]
I actually use notepad++ it just works.
Posted usingAugust 15th, 2007 at 11:41 pm (5692) [Quote]
TECO, where the test of mastery is simple: Describe, in advance, the effect of typing your full name while in command mode.
Get it at http://almy.us/teco.html and don̢۪t say I didn̢۪t call you a wimp.
Posted usingAugust 16th, 2007 at 12:24 am (5693) [Quote]
[…] Terminally Incoherent » Blog Archive » What does your favorite text editor say about you? (tags: humor) […]
Posted usingAugust 16th, 2007 at 12:56 am (5695) [Quote]
BBEdit - because when I’m not a vim-using unix admin I’m a crusty Mac user who wonders what all the fuss about TextMate is.
Posted usinghttp://bbedit.com/
August 16th, 2007 at 10:01 am (5700) [Quote]
[…] Read […]
Posted usingAugust 16th, 2007 at 12:43 pm (5703) [Quote]
Bull computer
Posted usingHVS Version 6
full screen editor: SCORPEO
not bad.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:23 am (5714) [Quote]
What about edlin? I just fired it up for the first time in 15 years and still remembered how to add and delete lines!
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 12:57 am (5715) [Quote]
Spot on. It is rare to find blogs on the internet with such accuracy.
I can get by with vi or nedit, but I prefer kate. Aside from my list of quick fish:// bookmarks, there are some other neat features. Select some text, and use Tab and Shift-Tab to indent and unindent lots of code at the same time. Ctrl-D for comments (it knows which comment syntax to use automatically). Or hit Ctrl-Shift-B for “Block Selection.” Once you learn *when* to use block selection, you’ll use it all the time. The incremental search plugin, Word Completion, Javascript scripting, and sessions complete the deal.
It is like having all the power of Emacs or an IDE, but without the commitment…and that may leave enough time in your life to meet a real three dimensional woman.
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 1:00 am (5716) [Quote]
BBEdit rools… but only for mac…
now i’m 100% linux i’m reduced to vim …
ah well
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 1:05 am (5717) [Quote]
HA I was just about to ask about edlin myself….
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 2:12 am (5718) [Quote]
Lol indeed, but my editor wasn’t even on the list!
Programmer’s File Editor
A very old editor, but I just like using it - misses a lot of features, though!
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 2:12 am (5719) [Quote]
Yep, gedit has syntax highlighting. Hell, the color schemes are even configurable (I like the Tango one). I do a lot of spec file editing in gedit.
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 2:14 am (5720) [Quote]
…and I’d like to register my strongest possible objection to your little browser / OS auto-detect system not auto-detecting Mandriva.
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 2:24 am (5721) [Quote]
Adam - are you using the binary downloaded from the mozilla site? If you do then your user agent says Linux. Most of the package maintainers will change that user agent string to something appropriate when they compile bundle it for your system.
I had the same issue with Ubuntu Dapper. The current version of Firefox in Dapper repository is 1.5. No way I’m running that. So I had to go and modify the user agent value in about:config and now it detects properly.
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 2:39 am (5722) [Quote]
Luke: no, I’m using the packaged version. The general.useragent.vendor string is Mandriva.
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 2:43 am (5723) [Quote]
Oh… Hmm… Well, then I have no answer for you. In my defense, I didn’t write this plugin. This guy did - so it’s his fault.
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 2:52 am (5724) [Quote]
okay, I will go persecute him instead then
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 3:01 am (5725) [Quote]
lol
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 3:29 am (5726) [Quote]
Just wanted to say I enjoyed your article.
Posted using Debian IceWeasel 2.0.0.5 onvim all the way! Even on windows I use GVIM…
Although I wish everthing worked like vim…
I often end up with a lot of erroneous :w and dd
and p in my .doc files… People think I’m retarded some times…
August 17th, 2007 at 4:30 am (5727) [Quote]
vi for sysadm work, jedit for programing. and:
joe /dev/sda when in trouble >:)
which other editors can edit device?
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 4:57 am (5728) [Quote]
I belong to a category that you didn’t mention: I use emacs and ed, emacs most frequently, ed for quick, little jobs and for certain things that I don’t know as well in emacs, such as complex regular expressions. I learned ed before emacs, but only by a few months, both at Bell Labs.
Posted usingI can use vi, but only know a few real vi commands - otherwise it is just a screen version of ed to which I escape constantly. I occasionally use Vim to edit Unicode text.
August 17th, 2007 at 5:20 am (5729) [Quote]
I use OpenOffice! You forgot to include that!
Okay, just kidding… What I use really depends on what I’m doing.
For quick edits, I just use Notepad in Win and Kate in Linux. For programming, I use Code::Blocks.
)
For PHP, there’s Notepad or Kate (I have yet to find a good program with integrated FTP on win32… Mabye code my own?
Sometimes I use NVU for HTML (but NEVER WYSIWYG, only code!)
Posted usingFor FTP, I use FireZilla Portable (got it on my USB flash drive).
www.portableapps.com if anyone’s interested in getting a good FTP client which can be moved around
August 17th, 2007 at 5:21 am (5730) [Quote]
Oh yeah, and portableapps.com comes with Notepad++ portable… That seems to be a new addition (wasn’t there the last time I checked - checked right after the previous post). Time to see if it’s on good terms with USB ^^
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 5:27 am (5731) [Quote]
[…] Gerade beim Alp gefunden: Was dein Texteditor über dich aussagt. Nun, ich benutze am liebsten TextMate und der entsprechende Abschnitt bringt es dann doch ziemlich auf den Punkt: You tried many different text editors. You could never get a hang of vi and Emacs. You think it’s a bit crazy to spend time and effort learning how to use them. You were dissatisfied with every single editor on the market. They were either to difficult to use, to simplistic, or too bloated. Then you found TextMate and it felt like an extension of your body. It did for text editing what OSX did for operating systems. You love this editor so much, that you actually don’t mind it’s not free. For you it’s worth every penny. You don’t mind being the only guy in your town who actually paid for a text editir. You are a smug Mac user, and proud of it. You have recurring fantasies in which you strangle Justin Long with you Mighty Mouse cord. […]
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 5:44 am (5732) [Quote]
Before linux, I used dos. And I did everything with the N* commander. On my first forays on linux (1999), I discovered mc, and havent used anything else since.
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 6:18 am (5733) [Quote]
You forgot PSPad. It is great. I use it to code PHP.
Posted usingAugust 17th, 2007 at 6:53 am (5734) [Quote]
Emacs does everything for me. I’m not very comfortable with th