Top 10 Code Editors!
I love talking about IDEs and code editors. This has to be the damn touchiest nerd subject of all-time. I’ve got friends that ONLY write code in vim, while others that swear upon Midnight Commander, and yet others who use nothing less than the full-on graphical all-encompassing-integration IDE (dreamweaver, zend, etc). Well, I’ve seen this blog before, but I think the needs of a web-developer with respect to an IDE/Editor is different from other types of code author’s perspectives. So here they are, may the best editor win!
| 10) |  So first there’s Vim. Vim stands for ‘VI – Improved’, as it’s a GNU remake of the old UNIX ‘VI’ text editor. Vim is primarily for Linux/Unix systems. Vim looks like something you’d see on a green-and-white CRT monitor in front of a programmer in the movie Superman 2. It’s straight from the 80s (pure ASCII text-based love), and furthermore it doesn’t even have a funky keyboard based ASCII faux-gui like nano or emacs, it’s keyboard shortcuts and commands or BUST.
Vim is said by it’s die-hard followers to be the hands-down fastest way
to write code, but only after you’ve spent 15 years figuring out what
all the keyboard shortcuts and commands do. For example, the command
for save+quit is ’:wq!’. If that’s not intuitive to you, it’s because
you’re a NORMAL PERSON. Personally I will
never understand the legions of vim-geeks. Why not ‘ctrl+s’?? Anyway,
vim is actually pretty handy sometimes, besides just being a classic: PROS:
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| 9) |  Visual Studio .NET is a Microsoft development environment for just about everything. Really! It does C/C+/C#/VisualBasic/VC+ and the kitchen sink. Hey… But none of those are web languages! Well, exactly. THIS IS NOT A WEB DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT. When I walk into a coffee shop and I’m like “Oh, you’re a web developer?” and I look at their screen and see them editing ASP code in MSVS.net I just break out laughing. This is not just because of my true hate for ASP (maybe a little..), but also because it took MS until 2008 to get good “Intellisense” (code completion) for Javascript and CSS. How can you even call this a web development environment? So besides that, you can do code-bookmarks (which I kind of like, when I’m editing C!), tabbed-browsing, syntax highlighting, and all the other standard code-edit stuff. If you’re working on an ASP project you can Debug your applications line-by-line.There are no real advantages to using this IDE: the documentation is TERRIBLE, the community is non-existent compared to OS alternatives and their respective IDEs (like the PHP & Ruby languages), the interface (and the configuration) is complex and ugly. Furthermore, there’s no such thing as Open Source when it comes to Microsoft, so naturally this (VS.NET 2008) costs like $1200 bucks for the full version, and guess what? It’s terrible to use with MySQL, so if you want the Full Integrated MS package you get MSSQL 2008, and then you’re out another 1000+ bucks. “Sounds Great! Where do I sign up?” SLAP, read below to find out why I think this IDE is terrible crap. PROS:
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| 8) |  Next we have Midnight Commander.
Midnight Commander really doesn’t count as an ‘IDE’ per se (like vim),
however it is a pretty powerful tool that can (to be sure) meet the
same ends when it comes to web development. So, MC is like a futuristic
editor/file-manager, except it’s stuck in ascii mode. MC features a
full on menu system and ASCII GUI with mouse support
(look out vim-heads)!! Not only a file manager, MC can use one of it’s
panes to edit code with it’s built-in editor ‘mcedit’ which features
syntax highlighting for most common languages. With mcedit you can also
use the mouse to edit text too, which is (always) an eternally handy
feature. MC also boasts the ability to look directly into common
archive types (such as .zip, .tar, or even .rpm) as though they were
directories on the system. It can also act as an FTP client, which is pretty handy for those of us who work in PHP
(or without versioning software in general). One thing I find pretty
neat about midnight commander is it’s level of customize-ability, the
user can change the panes to do pretty much whatever they want, I like
that. it’s also filled with keyboard shortcuts (obviously, being an ASCII
app) that can make life much faster when it comes to
editing/renaming/moving around files, and flipping about it’s panes. To
put icing on this already bloated cake, MC now has an HTTP filesystem browsing plugin, meaning you can use HTTP virtual directories just like a mounted drive. That’s pretty freakin’ cool.
PROS:
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| 7) |  Dreamweaver is primarily a windows IDE,
which does absolutely everything, and mostly it does it all really
freakin’ bad. For the record I absolutely hate Dreamweaver, as well as
most other adobe web-development solutions. However, it’s a major
player in the IDE game and I want my own
chance to back up my good reasons to hate this. Basically DW can handle
the most non-experienced web developers and give them something
super-graphical to work with. DW even will write pre-made JS scripts
for would-be complex elements of a site that require some Javascript
Know-how. Unfortunately it’ll give you disgustingly complex markup (and
scripts) and instead of using would-be simple css techniques to do
image-swap operations. It exports a full-on image pre-loader script,
which is a crap approach. Actually, most things DW does are the ‘crap’
approach. It also attempts to incorporate server-side logic into it’s
graphical frontend a-la ColdFusion, which I just couldn’t hate more (as
a non-coldFusion developer). The reason it’s on my list is because it’s
actually got a decent text editor built into it, and if you’re only
using it to edit text, it’ll serve you right. It gives you tabbed code
browsing, easy to use find operations, and syntax highlighting, as well
as some more handy features. One thing I specifically like about DW is
the ability to search for a string in just one directory of a massive
project EASILY. Also, it doesn’t use java,
so once it’s all started and initialized it runs pretty smoothly and
quickly. Another thing I like about the find function is that you can
split the main edit window into panes and use them for what you’d like.
I’m usually splitting between the find in project pane and the code
editor. PROS:
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| 6) |  Zend Studio a PHP IDE
(for Windows, Mac & Linux) that comes from the very same people who
developed php. Zend sports some pretty cool features when it comes down
to PHP. It’s the only IDE for PHP I’ve ever seen that introduces a line debugger; being able to do breakpoints with PHP and examining data (can) save HEAPS of time. Being a modern editor it’s got most of what you’d expect from an IDE
in 2008: It’s got tabbed file browsing, an easy way to do a
‘find-in-project’, groovy text-editing keyboard shortcuts, etc. Also,
it sports database-view which is compatible with all kinds of db types,
including MSSQL and MySQL. If you’re using
phpmyadmin to view your db all the time and find it tedious at times,
this is actually a pretty great tool. Why is it all the way up here at
#7? Well, for one thing it’s written in Java, and it’s totally clunky
and *slow because of it. It’s definitely a heavyweight and seemingly
without all the features to really back up it’s memory footprint.
Furthermore, if you’re like me you’ve probably long-since left PHP in the dust for Ruby or something else (i.e. something better), and Zend isn’t going to be very helpful anymore..
PROS:
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| 5) |  NetBeans IDE is Awesome. Firstly it’s FREE, which I suppose considering all the other GNU/GPL compliant projects listed on this page isn’t that surprising, but it’s still pretty cool for a fully-featured IDE like this one. NetBeans supports a lot
of languages, and (being an OpenSource Project) sports a load of
plugins. Since I’m mainly a ruby developer, i have to go off about
this, but it also features a load of ruby/rails developing tools in
it’s base version, which is pretty impressive considering how
much other stuff it’s doing. Netbeans has pretty great rails
code-completion stuff, as well as a regexp helper (which is pretty
cool). It also features GUI’d up rails file/generation for MVC
stuff, which does make it that much easier. Another thing I find pretty
groovy is a gem installation manager, so no more comparing the output
of sudo gem list to figure out what’s going on. Unfortunately (and this
doesn’t bother a lot of people, but it bothers me), you must
create a project before you really start working. Other editors/IDEs
are currently realizing that developers frequently need to hop around
and edit things on the FS, and this task is greatly complicated more
rigid when one must make a project and add files to that
project, etc. I know I’ve talked a load about it’s Rails features, but
netBeans also has a very impressive feature-portfolio when it comes to PHP and even more-so for Java and C/C++ development.
PROS:
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| 4) |  Eclipse Is probably the most well-put-together open-source IDE I’ve ever encountered for Linux. Firstly, ECLIPSE IS FREE, which is awesome for how big of a product it really is. Also, this IDE is written in Java (and as such it’s on OSX Win and Lin), however unlike most Java applications Eclipse uses the SWT
libraries for it’s widgets (not swing) and because of this it really
does seem to work much better and less clunky. I mean a lot of things
by ‘clunky’ by the way, but swing has a serious tendency to redraw
every widget all the time, and it makes this awful flicker. Also it
just runs significantly slower than the native OS’s windowing toolkits
(MFC, GWT, etc.).. Anyway, Eclipse draws all of it’s power from an EXTENSIVE
list of eclipse plugins. These plugins will basically allow you to bend
eclipse to your will. Needless to say, with the right plugins eclipse
can do EVERYTHING I’ve listed for every
editor above, and probably even more. That’s hip. It can integrate with
database systems (mssql, mysql, sqlite, etc), it supports syntax
highlighting for any language you can find an eclipse package for (most
languages), and it can be customized to be a SUPREME web environment. Eclipse also supports line-break debugging of PHP applications. Also (I really like this) the Mylyn extension integrates your Bugzilla account at work to your IDE, letting you manage bugzilla tasks straight from the IDE. That’s freakin’ cool. It also has full (FULL) ruby-on-rails support, which I’ll explain in #5.
PROS:
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| 3) |  Aptana Is a really unique eclipse-based ide. If your work centers around Javascript and DHTML techniques and you don’t want to pay for your IDE, this is the one for you. Aptana seems to be an IDE geared towards DHTML
development. Being ‘Eclipse-based’ means that aptana is really an
extension to eclipse (i.e. on a linux system you install eclipse first
and upgrade it to “Aptana”). Aptana also comes stand-alone if you don’t
want to get eclipse first (although it will still be using the eclipse
core). This IDE features everything you need to develop Ajax applications. Firstly, you’ve got code-complete operations for javascript, CSS, and other DHTML
favorites. Also (with the RadRails plugin) you get code-completion on
rails objects and methods with inferenced typing. Not only is that tech
stuff, but it’s also slick. You also get heaps of
rails-specific features with RadRails (which I have to talk about, as a
rails developer). You get integrated testing in the IDE, which of course helps you run your tests as much as you SHOULD
be when you’re developing. You get an integrated “script/console”,
which is (admit it) totally awesome. Aptana also handily gives you a
view of your whole HD instead of requiring you to start an Aptana
project to contain all files in, although you do still have that
option. I really like that. Being a very current environment, Aptana
also supports current trends in javascript like Prototype syntax (as
well as Dojo and Mochkit).Okay, so a little off the subject of the IDE for a second, Aptana also has one grand trick up it’s sleeve. Aptana is also producing Jaxter which (and I know this will hurt your head at first) really introduces Server-Side Javascript. Check out an awesome example of this here. I was pretty impressed! Jaxter basically does away with the rigid concept of a client end doing strictly managed data trading via ajax. Instead, Jaxter makes it possible for the client and the server to both run the same javascript, thus making the information exchange much more transparent. Surely when both age a bit there will be VERY unique things one will be able to do with Aptana and Jaxter together. PROS:
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| 2) |  Komodo IDE is an awesome IDE
from ActiveState. I had the good fortune of running across the
ActiveState guys doing a demo of this at RailsConf in Portland Oregon
where I got a free Komodo 4.1 CD from them. This IDE
is a ruby guy’s dream, I like the interface in this one a lot. Firstly,
it’s got awesome (and undoable) find/replace-in-project features.
Secondly (this is important), when editing PHP
projects since there’s so many files I really like to use the arrow
keys to quickly navigate through the file tree. Specifically I like it
when you can press L/R to expand/contract a folder, and for some reason
in Eclipse this only scrolls the file-browse pane (who would need that
on the arrows?). Anyway, I really like Komodo handles this.Also, Komodo is built on the mozilla engine, which (I’m sure) made it easy for ActiveState to provide full-on browser integration for debugging Ajax/JS applications. That’s really cool, other IDE DOM inspectors/debuggers usually can’t hold a candle to this. Since Komodo is a Rails IDE specifically, you can do some serious debugging, INCLUDING using script/console WHILE breakpoint debugging from inside the IDE. That’s pretty awesome. It’s got a Unit::Test interface, which is pretty cool, but really it’s just a widget to run rake, which is a bit crap because rSpec is gaining ground really fast on the rails TDD scene, and so far this has no support for it. Furthermore, Komodo IDE doesn’t have too big of a memory footprint, and starts pretty quickly. HOWEVER, if you only want an awesome editor with full code-edit 2008 features (even code completion), it ships with KomodoEdit, which is basically all the text-edit glory of Komodo IDE, but without the IDE. KomodoEdit takes about a second to start on a fast machine. Did I mention it’s available for Windows, Linux, and OSX? PROS:
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| 1) |  TextMate is my favorite editor and the one that I use, released for OSX (only). Textmate built this site! Textmate really isn’t (per-se) an IDE, but it’s the most full-featured editor EVER.
Basically, the interface wins me over here. Firstly, to open a project
all you do is drag the folder (in finder) to the textmate icon in the
Dock, and it immediately gives you the code editor window and a
file-navigation slider page. It’s very lightweight; textmate takes
about 1 second to start. Despite it’s many features, it even appears lightweight, which I really like. It’s extremely
non-obtrusive in comparison to the other entries listed on this page,
which I really like. Furthermore, you can just type ‘mate
<directory_name>’ into the terminal to open any filesystem
directory that you’re currently working on. Alright, past this textmate
is expandable easily by ‘Bundles’, which it comes with HEAPS
of, there’s pre-packaged Bundles for nearly every type of language
(really quite a long list). These are also available in development
version from the Macromates subversion repository.So, besides all that, textmate is very useful for quickly finding things in files, or around a massive project. When I press (apple)-T I get a ‘find file in project’ dialog, which updates each time I press a new letter key, whittling down to the final file I’m looking for. It does this based on matched characters, and not squential matches (although that does seem to also carry weight). Point being you don’t even have to spell (or remember) the filename correctly and usually you’ll always get the right one. Also, these lists (if you don’t type anything) list the last files you’ve opened with the dialog, so many times you can just use the ‘last 10 files’ list to select what you need without typing anything. When you’re in a large monolithic file you can use the ‘Go to Symbol’ dialog (ctrl+shift+t) and you get a list of all your classes and all the methods/class variables inside of it (all indented properly), which you can go directly to in the code by clicking. You also get a find/replace in file and find/replace-in-project with ctrl+f and ctrl+shift+f (I like how related operations have related key shortcuts). Of course, regexp is there when needed. Code completion is partially supported in ruby (for now) but in C, Java, and PHP and a host of other supported TM languages the code-completion function is fully implemented. I’ve got the Ruby bundle checked out from the Macromates SVN (because I can do that), and the new generation of ruby code completion is looking sharp! Also you can run your tests AND debug your code (macromates has added ruby-debug to the TextMate mix) from inside TextMate, which encompasses most of what I ever need to do with a full-on IDE in terms of Ruby. And one more thing. If you hold alt your text selector turns into a crosshair with which you can select blocks of text vertically or horizontally and edit them vertically. This even includes otherwise incredibly complicated block-cut/copy/paste operations. This saves me just heaps of time. One last note: this is the only editor I’ve found so far that has HAML syntax highlighting. Textmate costs about $30. PROS:
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