Earlier today, I posted a comment to NSLog();’s entry TexMate’s Undo.
Here’s an excerpt of the article:
I typed a line or two, uploaded the changes, and realized I’d edited the wrong file. I hit cmd-Z to undo and… yeah. TextMate users know what I found. Undo only “undoes” one character at a time.
Into the trash TextMate went again.
Erik Barzeski didn’t publish my comment. I don’t understand his decision, so I wanted to post it here.
Unfortunately I didn’t keep a copy of my comment, guess I’m not used to comment censorship, all I have is his mail quoting the most part of it, I put “my answer to his answer” here.
He didn’t include the part where I made the same “test” with BBEdit that he does with TextMate: Open it and notice what I don’t like. I talked about poor syntax highlighting, lack of markdown highlighting/preview and lack of support for other VCS than CVS and svn.
N.B. I just added the two GoogleFight links to make sense. I hope the three quote levels are still readable.
Quotes are:
My unpublished comment
His answer
My answer
On 11/9/06, Erik J. Barzeski wrote:
Hi,
FredB wrote on 11/9/06 11:06 am:
I hardly remember how I worked before TextMate.
Good for you.
Euh… Thanks.
- OS X is an UNIX system and BBEdit almost doesn’t reflect that while TM leverage that a lot.
That doesn’t make it a good text editor.
I didn’t say it’s the one and only reason! Are you asking me to post a complete review in the comments? You asked “why do you use TextMate?”, and that’s ONE of my reason:
There is a lot of unix tools to deal with text.
- TextMate is as closed source as BBEdit, BUT Allan is smart enough to open all the plugins, tools bundles, etc. Instead of simply adding features, he often tries to create an API to make it accessible to everyone (cf tm_dialog).
OK. I don’t need 400 plugins. I rarely need two plugins. Your use may be different. Answer the question (from your perspective) and move on.
I sure use my text editor for more than two things, and I guess I’m not alone.
I use it as a word processor, to write and preview mails, markdown, HTML, CSS, javascript, ruby and rails, bash, C, etc. Plus the other occasional files I open.
Other bundles help me manage my code with different VCS (CVS, svn, Mercurial, Darcs), retrieve TODOs in comments, automatically insert links from Google or to Wikipedia, and more generally save a lot of typing with snippets, macros, commands etc.
Even if it were true that a lot of people use only two plugins, I guess it won’t be the same two ones for everyone.
BTW, you ask my opinion, then when I give it, you tell me to move on. Nice.
The attitude TM users have is astounding, and frankly, yet another of the reasons I resist using it.
Wtf are you talking about?
I can’t see one thing in my comment that can be seen as offensive. Is it the word “lame”?
TextMate community is incredibly nice and friendly. YOU trash an application used everyday by thousands of people after trying it for 2 minutes and it’s those people that are “astounding” when they answer your post!
About your post: I find your “I typed a line or two, (…) Into the trash TextMate went again.” part really lame.
Too bad. Single-character undo is retarded.
That doesn’t make TextMate a bad text editor nor your post intelligent.
I could have been fair and show the advantage each editor has, but that’s not what you did.
It’s my blog. If I can’t GET to the advantages TM offers because I’m annoyed within 1 minute of launching the app, I have no obligation to press on.
Neither do I have to be fair to BBEdit, then. That was my point.
BTW, I’d like to get chunk undo in TM too, but it’s a small price to pay compared to what TM gives me. Talking about price, I can get 3 TM licences for one BBEdit. ;)
Now you’re just making stuff up?
No.
Notice that I wrote “I can get”, not “you can get”.
I checked both sites before writing this.
Barebones adds VAT for Europe, macromates don’t. I don’t know why.
So, in EUR:
(97,69 * 1.21) / 39 = 3,03089487179.
Prety close, uh? And I don’t count any change fees PayPal might take.
And no, I won’t spend ~118EUR to test it.
Without VAT it’s still ~2.5.
And now, the serious part:
GoogleFight 1: TextMate vs BBEdit
GoogleFight 2: Allan Odgaard vs Erik Barzeski
No, it’s not serious, and it’s the reason your comment won’t be published in this form. I realize you mean it as a joke, but get real.
LOL. Are you serious?
It is a joke, you realize it, but won’t publish my comment?
So either, you don’t accept jokes or you think your readers are too dumb to get it.
You should get real.
– Kindest regards,
Erik J. Barzeski
Gotta love prefab signatures. I sure don’t see any kindness in your writings.
P.S: I posted my answer on my blog, feel free to post a comment, they are not moderated.
–
FredB
Posted on 10/11/2006 .