Use Multiple Editors
Contrary to Dave Thomas’s maxim, pick a text editor and know it well, I think sometimes multiple text editors are more productive than just using one for everything.
Some of the reasons you may need to use different text editors:
- Different Programming Languages
- On different systems (remote SSH vs. Local)
- Multiple Computers (Home, Work/Client Site)
- Something fast and easy vs. something large and complicated
Personally I use the following editors:
- Eclipse – PHP, Java, Groovy, Some Ruby
- Notepad++ – ColdFusion, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ruby, C
- VIM – Bash, on the fly edits for PHP, Java, Groovy, Ruby
- Visual Studio – C++, C#, VB
Do I know everything about all the editors, no, but for the amount of time I spend in each of these different languages, I know enough about each editor to be the most productive in the time I have.
Whatever combination you pick follow this rule: Pick the editor with the 20% of features that are easiest to use that allows you to do 80% of your work. Here is a list of text editors in Wikipedia to help you decide.
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