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I've been programming in python and C for a little less than a year, now. I switched from OSX to Ubuntu about a month ago. I'm learning C++, and most specific (non-beginner, I.E.: an SFML tutorial I'm using) tutorials that I've seen talk as if I use an IDE. I've used Textwrangler (OSX), gedit (Linux), and nano (Both; With built-in syntax highlighting and other extras turned on) for programming, along with the terminal and "make" so far, and I'm perfectly happy with them. I would use emacs, but I really don't like the way it looks. Should I use an IDE for C++? If so, why? Honestly, I'm just scared of being a ctrl-space'ing heathen. Thank you for any responses, and take the previous sentence with a grain of salt.
Short answer: Use an IDE if you feel comfortable with one. Don't use an IDE if you don't feel comfortable with one.
To really answer this question, though, we should probably look what using an IDE gets you. Here's the Visual Studio interface for C++:
(source: msdn.com)
The first thing you notice, of course, is the code windows with the pretty highlights. However, that's not the IDE; that's just the text editor part. The rest of it is what's really important. Visual Studio includes a debugger, a file/project manager, a compiler, support for source control... the list goes on. The first letter of "IDE" is the most important one - integrated. It includes everything you need to develop in one neat package.
However, this has its downsides, too. Maybe you don't like VS's text editor. Then, you have to have two windows open, and use the IDE only for debugging, compiling, and source control, wasting most of the screen space. Maybe, after a while, you start to think maybe GCC optimizes your code better, so you start using that. Eventually, the "integrated" part of IDE goes out of the window, and you're using only a few features of the product. At that point, it might be more productive just to find replacements for everything.
Of course, there are extensions and plugins for some of these things, but the point is: an IDE is generally only useful if you spend all or most of your time in it. If you like the entire or most of the IDE, great. If you don't, then use something else, whether that's another IDE or a bunch of command line tools or something else.
Addendum: I used to use Visual Studio, and then moved to Linux with Vim, gcc, and gdb. I work with SFML a fair amount in personal projects, and I don't feel that an IDE is especially suited to it in any particular way; I do just fine with the command line tools. The tutorials are most likely written that way because most people begin coding with an IDE, and SFML attracts a lot of beginners.
It's been more than an year that i'm developing a new scripting language with its own grammar rules and constructs.
I'd like to give the users of this language some minimalistic ide to work with, but i don't want/have time to make one from scratch so i'd like to take one already existing (it has to run on Linux platforms natively, so no windows-only editors plz) and customize it.
Well, which one is the easiest to customize without changing the source code and recompiling it, maybe even with plugin support?
Thank you.
UPDATE
I don't need to know which editor is the best for you, i need to know which one is the easiest to customize AND, most of it, which one has the most complete documentation about new language customization.
Ex: SciTE is good, but its documentation about custom grammars is really poor.
Have you looked into Scintilla/SciTE? I think it gets used often for this sort of thing. It's very lightweight, but from what I understand, is easy to add functionality to. It's not really an IDE, but it's more of a text-editor component that you could use as the basis for a simple IDE. I've used SciTE, which is a sort of demo text editor of Scintilla's capabilities. It's simple, but also quite fast and responsive.
I suppose another option would be to write plugins for existing IDEs such as Eclipse or Netbeans. Both of these IDEs support many languages just through 3rd-party plugins. Going this route means you don't need to build a complete UI, just the components needed to make your language work.
The downside of building plugins for an extendable IDE (such as NetBeans or Eclipse) is that you are at the mercy of the IDE developers. If they change the way the platform works, you must ensure that your plugins still work with the new versions. Sometimes this can become a major problem.
All of these options should work on Linux as well as Windows.
This sounds like a very ambitious project and I wish you luck.
I don't use linux too often, I use a Mac and my favorite text editor is called TextMate because it has snippets, code completion, and a whole mess of other features. The closest thing to it that I've found on linux is called Scribes.
There's always Emacs or Vim (I lean towards Vim, but that's just my opinion :) ). Neither are IDEs per se, but both are very extensible and it shouldn't be too hard to create settings for each that will aid people writing scripts in your language.
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I am just starting at a job in which I will be using a lot of ColdFusion. What is the best IDE/Editor to use?
I'd like to provide my personal reasoning behind why you might choose any of these editors (at least the ones I'm familiar with). Just saying "use this, use that" is not at all helpful. To large degree, the question is wrong. There's rarely a "best IDE" for a language; rather, there are multiple environments, each suiting particular needs. Here goes:
1) Dreamweaver
Why you would use it: its history as a designer tool makes it much easier for "non-coder" types to start cranking out websites. If you're a solo developer building a lot of "Tom's Corner Store" type of sites, even if they require some CF Coding (mailing list, subscribers, current specials, light content management, etc), its design tools, "template" features, and ease-of-deployment (ftp) make it an attractive choice. It has good-enough code coloring and code completion for the built-in CF tags and functions. It can interrogate user-defined functions in the same page. It has excellent CSS support. You can find a wealth of extensions, too. It's pretty stable and, in my experience, hasn't been very "crashy". It will do a fair amount of code generation for you as well (whether that code is "good" is debatable). All in all Dreamweaver is incredible software for web site designers.
Why you wouldn't use it: It is not free, and it is certainly not a "coder's editor". While it provides for extensions, they're typically interface-focused (javascript validation, etc), unlike say Eclipse plugins, which can run the gamut. For large projects, it simply does not have the code navigation features that many coders come to expect. It's web-focused. So if you're a polyglot, or even just like to dabble in compiled languages (java, etc), then you'll need to keep another editor on hand for those tasks.... you won't be able to do it all in one place. ColdFusion unit testing support is nonexistent in Dreamweaver. There is no step debugging for ColdFusion.
2) CFEclipse plugged into Eclipse.
Why you'd use it: CFEclipse is going on 6 years old now and has matured significantly. It's been quite stable for the last few years and most crashiness has been due to Eclipse itself and not CFEclipse (which was not true in the early days). Recently CFEclipse has seen an infusion of fresh blood and features are being added to make coding in it even more productive. It contains a wealth of keyboard shortcuts, many of the toolbar features people love from ColdFusion Studio days, and Eclipse's in-built code navigation features (namely, Ctrl-Shift-R for finding files quickly).
It has content assist for native CF Tags and functions, and some support for in-page variables, though that's never worked all that well. It does not support in-page functions, nor does it provide native true component insight (i.e. insight into components that you write and use in other code). It will support component insight to some extent with Dictionaries, but even then, it requires a lot of work on the part of the dictionary creator. Most people find dictionaries too much work to maintain, in my experience.
The lastest version of CFEclipse contains the best CFML formatting you'll find.
For me, "method explorer" and "Snip Tree View" -- particularly keyboard shortcuts for inserting snippets -- have been big productivity boosters.
If you work with ColdSpring, ModelGlue, Mach-II, ColdBox, and other frameworks with xml configuration files, CFEclipse's Framework Explorer is brilliant.
Because it's a plugin to Eclipse, you can do everything else you'd want to do in Eclipse. You wanna code java? You can. You want webservice support? you got that. You want to do step debugging, you can do so with the free Adobe-provided extensions for Eclipse.
The large plugin ecosystem is one of the most attractive features of Eclipse, and you shouldn't discount this when deciding on an editor. For example, I would not want to work without Mylyn, which integrates with issue tracking and in my experience has transformed the way I work, much for the better.
Eclipse's version control system support is excellent as well. Subversion is well supported; there's a VSS plugin; and recently a git plugin (if not two) has been accepted into the Eclipse foundation so we'll see native git support very soon (you can get it now with a plugin).
Eclipse's ANT support is excellent.
You can easily plug the MXUnit Eclipse plugin into Eclipse for unit testing your CFML (full disclosure: I contribute to MXUnit).
Finally, I have full confidence that the folks working on CFEclipse -- Denny, Mark, Jim, Peter, et al. -- will continue to work toward keeping CFEclipse as the best open source CFML IDE available. These are some of the brightest minds in the ColdFusion community and are passionate about their mission. If you choose to use CFEclipse, you are not choosing to use an IDE that will be supplanted by ColdFusion Builder. This project is in good hands.
Why you wouldn't use it: it's a code IDE, not a design tool like Dreamweaver. It's not perfect... code assist can be too aggressive in its suggestions. Eclipse itself, especially when you pile it up with all kinds of plugins, can get unstable on lesser machines. Finally, people who don't like the "Project" view of the world often have complaints about it because they're used to working directly with the file system view of the world. Its deployment support is nowhere near as simple as Dreamweaver, though you can find plugins that get close.
3) ColdFusion Builder
Why you'd use it: all of what I said previously about Eclipse itself applies to CFBuilder when used as a plugin to Eclipse. I cannot speak to the Standalone version because as of this writing, it still doesn't support plugins very well. This will most surely be fixed by the time it is released, but I don't want to speculate on what the Standalone may or may not do.
One of CFBuilder's big draws is "Extensions". These are a way to plug in CFML code into your editor. It's hard to describe, so I'd suggest googling for "ColdFusion Builder Extensions", and you'll most likely be amazed. Adobe's Terry Ryan has created "Apptacular" for scaffolding applications from a database, and Brian Rinaldi has a series of posts on building CFBuilder extensions. These are huge and will prove themselves to be a developer's best friend after CFBuilder is released.
CFBuilder's deployment support is, in my opinion, on par with if not superior to Dreamweaver's.
CFBuilder does not require an additional plugin to do step debugging. Just hit the debug button and off you go.
CFBuilder contains true component insight, meaning that it can introspect components you write and provide ctrl-space content assist. It can be wonky, however, and does require some configuration. But please remember that as of now, CFBuilder is still in beta. My best guess is that it'll be at least a few versions until all the kinks are worked out of this feature. Still, it's a big productivity and learning booster to get content assist on your own components.
CFBuilder provides a "Servers" view for stopping/starting your CF Server. It's built on Aptana and so contains the Aptana "tail log" view, which is great for watching log files. Just like CFEclipse, it has a Snip Tree View.
The CFBuilder "vision" is led by Adobe's Adam Lehman. He's passionate about CF and is a force of nature. I have great hopes for CFBuilder because of Adam's leadership.
Why you wouldn't use it:
For one, it won't be free. Noone outside Adobe knows yet how much it will cost, however. "Extensions" and the deployment features alone may be worth the price. Time will tell.
Because it's an Adobe product, I think it's reasonable to assume that releases will come as frequently as most Adobe products, which means... not very often. While CFEclipse deploys rather frequently lately -- and makes available a "nightly" site for the brave -- CFBuilder will most likely not do such daring-do. CFEclipse can afford to make potentially unstable builds available to the public, while it is perhaps not in Adobe's best interests to do so with CFBuilder.
Finally, it's still in Beta and might not be released for some time. If you get it now and start using it, remember that. In my experience, debugging is wonky, content assist sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, and a lot of people have experience crashiness. It's free beta software... you're getting what you pay for. But know that the more you work with this beta release, and particularly if you provide feedback via the public bug database, the better off all of us will be if it provides a best of breed editor for CFML.
Personally:
At home, when I do "designer" work, I use Dreamweaver when I feel that its Templates will help me build a site as quickly as possible. For existing side projects which require maintenance coding and easy deployments, I use ColdFusion builder.
At work, where I do almost no design work, CFEclipse has been my IDE since 2006. I've begun using ColdFusion builder a lot, though currently I split my time between CFBuilder and CFEclipse. One reason is that as of this writing, CFEclipse is more stable (i.e. it doesn't crash and I don't lose work). I fully expect stability problems to be mitigated by the time CFBuilder costs money.
Both CFBuilder and CFEclipse have public bug databases. CFEclipse has a well-attended public mailing list, and if you have questions, you'll get answers quickly. I cannot yet speak to the speed with which CFBuilder questions are answered.
Finally, for "coders", it's my experience that once you invest the time in learning the tools and shortcuts, Eclipse provides superior productivity compared with designer tools like Dreamweaver. For cranking out a designed site, a designer tool like Dreamweaver confers significant advantages.
The answer to the best ColdFusion IDE isn't an answer, but a question: "What are you trying to do with ColdFusion?" The answer to that question will lead you to an IDE that suits your needs for a particular project. Different circumstances or projects may lead you to a different tool which better suits your needs.
Notepad++ with CF syntax highlighting.
For free: Eclipse with CFEclipes plugin
For cost: If you're a developer, use Coldfusion Builder, if you're a front end designer Dreamweaver edits Coldfusion pretty well. I use it quite often.
I have heavily used Dreamweaver, CFeclipse with eclipse and now Coldfusion Builder. What I found is this:
1) Dreamweaver is only good for the few times you have to do some wysiwyg wizardry. The newer versions do have SVN integration so you might be able to get away with using it. I did use it for a few years on windows.
2) CFEclipse + Eclipse - Generally the standard of what' sbeen used for a while. Runs well, once you add in the Adobe dictionary files and subclipse, you have a good environment
3) Coldfusion Builder - This is Adobe's version of CFeclipse. It's still pretty new and getting to later beta. I switched to it about 6 months ago and haven't looked back. It's got a lot of wizards, including the ability to write your own plugins in CFML that will run right inside CFbuilder. It's free right now on beta but will likely be pretty cheap like the first flex builder that came out.
My Choice: Coldfusion Builder. It doesn't mean the others aren't capable, but you'll spend the least amoutn of time getting setup and maintaining your plugins, etc.
Since I had paid for and used Dreamweaver for a lot of years (Eclipse was generally sluggish sometimes on PCs' a while back until the excess of ram + cpu today), spending to have an adobe maintained copy of eclipse is okay with me. The wizards available in CFbuilder, especially for flex are excellent.
Hope that helps, good luck and share what you ended up picking and why!
For anyone who might stumble here from Google, you should also take a look at Sublime Text coupled with the ColdFusion package.
If you are familiar with Eclipse I would recommend Eclipse with coldfusion plugin.
http://www.cfeclipse.org/
Some use Eclipse, some use ColdFusion Builder, some use emacs or TextMate or vim. I use vim.
It doesn't take much time to try out an IDE or editor. Give them all a shot and stick with the one you like most.
The best IDE is ColdFusion Builder. It allows RDS, In Line Debugging, Extensions (written in ColdFusion!), Code Generation, Refactoring, supports JavaScript, CSS and HTML and so much more. It is currently in beta and should be released in production sometime this year.
CFEclipse is a great IDE for CFML and is the right choice if you are writing CFML for the open source engines. It is free and like most open-source free products it can do almost anything Builder can do if you invest the time to install the additional plugins (like Aptana) and tweak your setup just right.
I use both. At work, we use Builder. At home, I use CFEclipse.
Welcome to the CFML community!
Notepad++. Light and easy to use.
I'll vote for jEdit. While it doesn't offer great ColdFusion support beyond syntax highlighting, and therefore probably isn't great for learning ColdFusion, its flexibility in working with other languages (which seems to happen fairly often while working on the web), powerful macros, plug-in support, proper text wrapping, and loads of other features, make it the editor to which I always end up returning after trying out the "next best thing".
CFEclipse appears to be the most popular. Adobe has a beta of ColdFusion Builder (also based on Eclipse) but when I tried it a few months ago it was still buggy.
Personally I use TextMate (OS X) a pretty bare bones text editor.
I have used textpad, for 6 years, still a solid app, provides syntax coloring/highlighting, regular expressions support. Can easily search inside any file, through tons of folders/subfolders.
Just a fast loading, easy to use, tool.
Also has macros, and macro programming...
http://www.texptad.com
I'd like to throw E TextEditor for the Windows users in here as well. Its similar to sublime but it does have its advantages. E is more or less Textmate for windows and will allow you to run the cftextmate bundles. In addition to being lightweight and extremely fast you get the huge Textmate community developing bundles, color schemes, and other community driven content.
Some of the highlights of E is that it will allow you to open a directory and treat it directory as a project. Hitting Shift-Ctrl T will allow you to browse all the files in your project in a flattened hierarchy which allows you to find files extremely fast.
I think Xcode is a good IDE, but having used Eclipse for Java development in the past I am quite underwhelmed by XCode's code completion and error/warning feedback. (Most of the time, XCode seems to simply try to match the beginning of a text fragment to "words" in the same document, without even using type information to try to determine the appropriateness of a suggested completion.)
Does anyone have ideas or tricks to make XCode approach Eclipse's cleverness, or to realistically develop Cocoa apps with other IDE:s than XCode?
EDIT: Worth keeping an eye on this: code.google.com/p/objectiveclipse/
The good news is, Apple’s working on the problem. One of the goals of the clang compiler project is to create a reusable parser which can be used for better code completion and refactoring support. Indications are that this has borne fruit in the latest Snow Leopard seeds.
Quite simply: no.
You can do almost everything by hand using your favorite text editor but it's not at all recommended. Try designing interfaces without Interface Builder for example.
My advice would be to just stick with Xcode and learn its way of doing things. Yes, it will be different and sometimes might not be "better" in your Eclipsed eyes. Console yourself in the fact that Apple's managed to release some great products using Xcode.
My personal experience is that, each time I use Xcode, I find a new trick which I can add to my bag. Xcode is far more full-featured than what you might think at first (or second) glance.
I've long voiced my rants about what's wrong with Xcode (and what's not wrong with Xcode). But you really don't want to use another tool. And without breaking NDA: Xcode 3.2 with SnowLeopard: Hooray. (Compared to what we have; not compared to what we might want.)
That said, to your original question about code completion, I personally turn off auto-completion in favor of on-demand completion. I find it far more useful and less distracting. In the Code Sense panel, set "Automatically Suggest" to "Never" and make sure the other two options are selected ("Show arguments in pop-up list" and "Insert argument placeholders...") This will do completion in a pop-up box when you hit Escape, making it easy to scroll through looking for what you want. I find that I have to type a lot less this way, especially for methods that are not unique for many characters. 80% of the time, it's highlighting the right thing already.
I have certainly felt your pain — as an experienced Java developer and frequent Eclipse user, I've wished for the same features myself. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of anything that fits the bill. I don't think there was any satisfactory resolution to this SO question, either.
However, I think you'll be quite happy with the improvements to Xcode code completion coming in Snow Leopard — it's vastly smarter about filtering the list of possible completions. Also, there are new conveniences for coding, such as inserting a starting bracket when you forgot one, etc. To my knowledge, there is still no predictive compiling like Eclipse, though.
Is anyone aware of an IDE other than Eclipse that supports predictive compiling and warning/error reporting? Does Eclipse itself support the feature for languages other than Java, such as C++? I'm led to wonder whether the fact that Java is built with independent .java files rather than .h and .c/.cpp/.m files makes it simpler to predictively compile. Also, anything compiled with gcc requires a little more care and attention than the comparatively simpler javac command. Any thoughts?
Check out JetBrains' new IDE called "App Code". It's still in the Early Access Program, but even with the Early Access bugs it is hands-down better than xcode 4.
http://www.jetbrains.com/objc/
emacs and/or vim
Xcode does have some context awareness, when you are sending a message to an object it will generally have the "ESC" list pull up meaningful arguments.
One thing I strongly recommend is looking into text macros. These are not really type aware, but they can save a ton of typing - for instance, after #implementation type "init" and then hit control-. (period) to activate the text macro. It will fill out a whole init method for you. You can create your own, or override the existing macros.
Hi I mostly do C++, Objective-C programming. And I found Xcode plus an auto completion/macro plugin (Completion Dictionary) quite adequate.
However, all people seem to praise over their pure text editors. I tried Textmate for a bit; liked its simplicity but dislike its files/framework handling.
Am I missing something here? Or, do Vim or Emacs have auto-completion as good as Xcode?
Pull up a chair son, let me speak on this.
Well before the days of Xcode, there was VIM and Emacs. I know it's hard to imagine, but it's true.
Many people got accustomed to VIM/Emacs, and thus continue to use it.
Emacs is extremely customizable, and offers pretty much everything you can imagine (including a built in shrink and the towers of hanoi). You can easily call compilers from Emacs, and create your own extensions as needed.
VIM has incredible regex engine (Emacs does as well) and is very handy because (VI) comes with pretty much every Unix OS, and works fantastically if you don't have arrow keys (yeah yeah, real old school). People are very good with using keys to move around documents, without having to use the mouse.
The same is true with Emacs as well, but for me, I find cursor motion much easier on VIM.
The text editor war is fueled with as much religious zealotry as the Mac vs PC war, and the answer is pick the best that works for you. If you like Xcode, great, continue to use it, however good luck if you're ever forced to work on a PC or Linux machine. Personally, I use Emacs to code, VIM to manipulate text and Firefox to look at lolcats.
I really don't understand why emacs props up when people talk about text editors. In my experience it's more like eclipse (or one of those other platforms/IDEs) than vi because it is an environment, which happens to be good at text editing.
As an IDE emacs features version control, live compilation, spell checking, auto completion, debugging, code browsing and lots more for a wide variety of SDKs. For the rest of your computing needs it's an email/news/web/irc/twitter/xmmp client, calendar, organizer, calculator, terminal emulator, remote editing, speadsheets, games etc. etc. etc.
After Dijkstra: "Emacs is no more about text editing than astronomy is about telescopes"
What you are missing is that Emacs and Vim are actually IDEs.
vi is ubiquitous on UNIX systems, and Emacs almost so. AFAIK, Xcode is on one platform.
Having a powerhouse IDE is a great thing, but everyone should have a smattering of skill to keep them functional on any platform they might be dropped into.
It's all up to your preference.
Some people like to work with lightweight texteditors like (g)vim, emacs, pico, etc.
Others like to work with IDEs like MS Visual Studio, Eclipse, Xcode.
As long as your environment is compatible with the text editing technology, it's all up to you.
By the way, I like working with Eclipse and vim because they are what I used to learn programming ;)
The main reason you seem to think people like Emacs/Vim is for code completion. People like Emacs/Vim cause they are both MADE for editing text. You have control and options available to you that other editors just don't have. Once you get REALLY good at using one of these programs you want these key bindings / commands available everywhere. Macros, regular expressions, moving around by search/word/paragraph/function, interfacing with version control, complicated undo/redo and copy/paste functions and extension options are just a FEW of the things that these editors do really really well.
Code completion is just one of MANY things that can make writing programming easier. Emacs/Vim can handle ALL of them (natively or by exntensions).
No, not really. It's a matter of preference really. I liked working in Visual Studio 6, but nowadays the newer versions are just too bloated. So if I can do something outside VS I usually do it without opening the whole IDE box.
On windows I like notepad2 and gvim. I've customized vim to the point where it suits my needs perfectly, so I don't have to think about what and where.
But, it's good to mention that (you could also figure that out by yourself by reading these kinda posts) a lot of users uses vim/emacs/... 'cause of the heard-its-the-best/cool-factor/actual-usability. So if it doesn't suit you, don't use it. Nobody's gonna look you the wrong way cause of that.
For me most the two most important features are:
Emacs key bindings, as that is what my fingers are compatible to.
Open-source, for the freedom it provides. Being tied to one platform is anathema.
These days I mostly use Eclipse for programming (set to Emacs keybindings) and FSF Emacs for reading mail and some occasional LaTeX.
I personally love emacs. I've used vim and a handful of IDEs. Vim and emacs both have great communities where people are willing to code up features for just about any language. I don't know of any IDEs that, say, support Haskell. It all depends on what's important to you. Both have extension languages, though IMO, emacs lisp is the better of the two. The ability to ignore the mouse is the main thing I like as well. So many IDEs also feature emacs and vim compatibilty modes or extensions. They both have a large time investment, but both are worth it. Sooner or later, you will choose which suits you, vim/emacs/IDE, and then stick to improving your skills with it.
When you are using Emacs, you can install Cedet or Autocomplete package to use name completion for some languages (C++ is pretty good, while Obj-C is still not supported), in addition to rich editor functionality
emacs is powerful. I use emacs with vimpluse.el so that I can use the vim key bindings with all the emacs features.
I use Vim mostly for the input model. Once you have become proficient in the input model, going back to an editor where you are forced to use a mouse feels clumsy and ultimately (at least to me) irritating. It is a lot more efficient to type "ci'" to alter all the text between two single quotes, then taking your hands off of the home row, finding and selecting the text with the mouse and finally hitting 'delete'.
I have only used Emacs briefly and while I prefer Vim, I am jealous of some of its features. But I ultimately went with Vim because I find the chord-input model that Emacs uses to put unnecessary strain on my fingers.
I have Xcode and TextMate and I don't use them although I know they can be very powerful. Instead I use Vim (or MacVim if you prefer). Why ?
Because it's light, fast, addictive, powerful, customizable...
I could go on like this for a long time but the most important thing is that I can do all I want with Vim.
Whatever the editor you use, the best editor is the one you master (almost) perfectly.
I don't use vi to do my coding; however, I do, when available, use vi emulation in my editors. When I am doing Java coding in IntelliJ I use the IdeaVIM plugin which gives me vi support in IntelliJ's editor. This means I almost never have to take my fingers off of home row. I navigate with the keyboard (h,j,k,l), cut/paste with yy, dd, etc. And of course when I do need the power of a full feature GUI editor vi emulation doesn't keep me from using those features.
It drives me nuts that XCode doesn't have vi emulation in its editor. Seems like functionality that any decent IDE should have.
TextMate just feels lighter to me. Off the top of my head:
It has great support for jumping between files and methods within files. Think Quicksilver for files/methods. With a file open for editing, hit command-shift-t to bring up a floating panel listing all the methods in the file. Start typing and the list filters itself down. Select the method you want and hit return to jump to it. Xcode has something like this but the sting matching is more literal.
Lots of built in text expansion. Type a trigger and hit tab to have it expanded. For example, on a new line typing m and then hitting tab creates a method for you. The tab key then intelligently jumps to the various parts of the inserted text so that you can edit them in place. These are such a huge timesaver it's ridiculous.
Nice plugin support for Subversion and Git. Probably other VCSs too.
Completions (like Xcode) and history. TextMate allows you to tab-complete basically any text that exists in the file. So once you type a variable name or method call once, you can use tab to auto-complete it anywhere in that same file.
Smart past board with history, nice built in diffs, theme support, good keyboard support, find in files and across projects (with RegEx) and probably more that I'm forgetting.
Anyway, that's enough from me.
Personally, I love TextMate, because it's actually a really lightweight solution. Granted, I have not used Vim or Emacs in depth (I like my GUIs)...although I do thoroughly enjoy the Control-based cursor navigation (Control-A is beginning of line, Control-E is end of line, Control-F and Control-B are forward and backward, etc). So between Xcode and TextMate, I use Xcode for most of my serious development, but if I just need to quickly edit a source file I can be up and coding before Xcode even finishes launching (it helps that TextMate can remember which files were previously opened and restore them). So for some lightweight text editing, TextMate is my choice.
Above that, TextMate's plug-in support is amazing; it provides full support (syntax coloring, building & running, etc.) for so many different things (shell scripts, CSS, SQL, LaTeX, and much more) that Xcode doesn't provide. When I need to brush up a quick program in Java or tweak a webpage, it's a lot easier then using Vim and then building from the Terminal.
My only complaint with TextMate is that the console is read-only, so I can't build anything interactive. That, and the fact that it doesn't seem to support C99 keywords (for loops and booleans) in a plain-C file.
I am a long time vim user, and find that I really like Komodo edit with the Vim emulation turned on. Thus, I get all of convenience of the vim key bindings (to which I have become so accustomed that a recent MS Word document that I recently produced had no less than three ":w"s in it) plus the well implemented code completion for C++, Python, javascript, etc.
I don't use XCode because I don't develop OS X specific applications very much and so the benefit of the OS X framework integration isn't large enough to outweigh the cost of not having vim key bindings and the "do it our way or not at all" approach that Apple takes toward development.
Xcode is more of an IDE, whereas emacs and vi are for pure text (though they have massive extensions to them). This is preferable if you're on an older system or over an SSH. In addition, they're pretty much on every UNIX based computer, whereas XCode is proprietary Apple software.
You might have a look at my essay on the subject Why Emacs?. While it's more or less Emacs-centric some of the points made in it would apply to vim and TextMate as well.
I tried vim a long time ago and for one reason or another "I didn't get it". Then after trying other editors over the years I reached a point where no editor seemed to do what I wanted it to do. After voicing my frustration to a friend he recommended that I try vim....and I am so glad that I took another look because it was the answer to a question that I didn't know how to ask! I have used Vim/MacVim ever since...
here my configuration:
https://github.com/RandyMcMillan/QuickVim
I use Xcode as well because it is nice to have code completion.
XVim is good for people that want a modal/vim feel in the Xcode editor:
https://github.com/JugglerShu/XVim
But when it comes to my day to day editing Vim wins every time. That is why I have the QuickVim repo is so that I can quickly reproduce my environment anytime/anywhere.
I have a list of licenses for editors like TextMate, etc..but it is likely that I won't ever use them since I can use vim for free and customize it to my exact specifications.
Heavy Vim user here. I generally find the text manipulation capability of Vi/Vim far superior than traditional editors which lack things like:
visual mode: e.g. prefixing 5 lines with comment //
macros: e.g. surround 3rd to 5th words in a line with quotation marks, repeat for 100 lines
multiple registers: think 36 registers to copy and paste
delete{motion}: e.g. delete from cursor up to the next occurrence of 'initWithFrame'
These are just a few examples that Vim has XCode text editing beat hands down
For Objective-C. I tend to install a Vim plugin on the IDE to get the best of both worlds - native build / UI components support.
Incidentally. Emac keyboard bindings (e.g. CTRL-A to go to top of line) are supported in a lot of native (Coacoa) text fields on Mac. Including the one you're using for typing answers on stackoverflow :D
XVim works with XCode. IdeaVim for AppCode