Linux Text Editor(s)!

I know this is probably a strange question to ask, especially considering that any text editor is viable, but I'm wondering what is the choice for text editor of most programmers running on a Linux machine.

I'm currently using Fedora8, and I'm new to Linux/Fedora 8. I've been using 'gedit', which comes with the install. I've seen people using editors that run out of the terminal window, and they write/edit their code inside the terminal window.

I'm wondering what everyone else is using, and what I should probably be using too (I'm currently trying to learn C). Ok thanks guys.

I can't say I have a lot of linux ppl around me but those I know all have emacs as their favourite.

If S_M_A knew more Linux people, perhaps some vi users would have that as their favourite (Vim seems rather popular among the vi variants). And then there are a whole host of other somewhat less popular text editors, plus IDEs like Anjuta, Code::Blocks, KDevelop, etc.

I never did get used to EMACS. I use gvim, the graphical version of VIM.

Viggy

If you're new to Linux, or don't feel like spending hours learning how to use the text editor, don't go with vi/vim or emacs. These editors are very powerful, but take a long time to learn.

If you want to use a console based one, go with nano or pico.

For a GUI app, I use kate.

If you're just starting out in C, I'd recommend using an IDE so that you don't have to worry about makefiles or using the command line compiler. Code::Blocks is a good one, KDevelop is pretty good but can be a pain sometimes. Netbeans is another good one.

On linux, I tend to use emacs or KDevelop depending on the projet, but Code::Blocks is pretty nice too.

When working in projects or with a large amount of files, I always go Code::Blocks, it hasn't failed me once and is very comfortable to use. Kate, gedit and all those "desktop branded" editors are good, but as they come with the weight of their desktop environment, I've left them aside for something nicer and cleaner such as NEdit, which comes with an interesting system for syntax highlightning and marco programming.

I use SlickEdit since it's cross platform and looks and behaves almost the same way on Windows and Linux (a big plus in my book).

Vim!

Way back when I was in college we had no choice but to learn vi. When I entered the workforce I've found it paid dividends to learn those ropes early on.

To this day I prefer to use vi/vim even in a Windows environment. It becomes second nature just like typing with a qwerty keyboard layout.

The reason why I think vim is your best choice for any UNIX development is you are guaranteed that some version of vi will be on any UNIX box.

-gw

Geany - http://geany.uvena.de/

Windows console with telnet sessions &putty consoles with vi/vim/<sometimes textpad with files on a windows network drive... sorry.. but I do feel very lazy sometimes.. :D >

Emacs was what I learned, but if you can get past the steep learning curve of vi, I've seen some people do rather amazing things with it.

When I do something in Linux, I also most of the time use Emacs.

Some developers in my group use the Eclipse IDE for large-scale, cross-platform development. It is powerful for C, C++, python, etc and remains the same across the operating system boundaries. I personally have only used it for a few minor projects. But the guys really like it.

Sincerely, Chris.

I was under the impression Eclipse was mainly for Java development, and that support for other languages was pretty much an afterthought.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lindley

I was under the impression Eclipse was mainly for Java development, and that support for other languages was pretty much an afterthought.

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That might be true. I don't really know. My developers use Eclipse for mixed C++ / python projects linked together through boost::python. They like Eclipse because it supports drag and drop of new C++ DLL's into a python skript environment.

Other than that, it's Dev Studio.

Eclipse has some support for C/C++ also. I use it as a graphical editor sometimes. On almost every Unix/Linux system I know, there is my favourite vi. You know that you are an addict if you hit the ESC key every time you finished one block of code/text (even when writing a document in, say, Word ;-) ).

I find eclipse to be pretty unstable, flaky, and very, very slow. I use Code::Blocks at present, which I mostly like - it doesn't play very nicely with subversion, and the tabbed browsing implementation isn't very good, but it is otherwise pretty tidy.