

Redcar: Textmate-ish programmer’s editor for Gnome with bundles support - r11t
http://redcareditor.com/

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tsally
I've written my own editor too. Would you like to see my .emacs file?

All kiding aside, the most important thing about an editor is an ability to
customize it, whether it be via Emacs Lisp, Vim Script, or some other means.
No software developer or plugin writer is going to be able to anticipate your
needs, instead give yourself the ability to fulfil them.

For example, just recently I wrote up a quick Emacs Lisp function to allow me
to toggle between header files and source files for C/C++. I'll add a
recursive search (to account for more complex project layouts with /inc and
/src) after exams.

<http://paste.lisp.org/display/77348>

For those that think learning to customize an editor takes too long, learning
to program takes even longer. You'll learn how to make your editor do anything
you want longer before you become an excellent programmer. Textmate and
textmate like editors are great shortcuts, but probably crutches in the long
run. That being said, Textmate does anticipates the average programmer's needs
suprisignly well out of the box, so in that sense it fills a niche.

~~~
mannicken
I think one can compare customization against wizards in Studio or scaffolding
in Rails.

Sure, it's an easy way to get started with whatever: MFC apps, Rails apps, or
text editing. But when you outgrow hello world application, you'd want much
more power.

I used Emacs on and off for maybe four years but never customized it. I
finally gathered up some attention month or so ago, got through tutorials and
now I'm editing _everything_ in Emacs (and this comment too). There is just a
lot of accidental complexity in my brain, which can and is successfully
automated by Emacs.

If you are a programmer, you should be pissed off and outraged by anything
that doesn't allow you to automate itself. After all, automation is what we
all do -- to get away from all the boring stuff and concentrate on things that
are really fun. Like sex. Or running.

That's why I don't like GUI: remembering key chords is a way of automating
tasks through memorization, and clicking on buttons requires much more
cognition and interaction with the screen.

And that my friends, is what really grinds my gears.

~~~
jodrellblank
_If you are a programmer, you should be pissed off and outraged by anything
that doesn't allow you to automate itself._

Ooh, burn burn, rage rage, agreement!

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sqs
I know some Mac users who've said they would switch to Linux if there were a
TextMate-like editor available. This could be it.

~~~
fendale
I don't get why people are building these fancy new editors - You can get both
Emacs and Vim to behave Textmate like in many ways. They are both usable
everywhere, including in a terminal.

No matter which editor you want to use, you have to learn it and it takes
time. A few years back I decided between Emacs and Textmate and learned Emacs
- the main reason was because I can still use it when I am forced into a
terminal or Windows.

~~~
nailer
But vi (and likely emacs as well) has terrible discoverability. I can modify
my gedit or eTextEditor syntax highlighting easily. You could spend an hour
learning how to do the same in vi. Hell, to even find 'colorscheme' you'd have
to wonder round vimtutor for ages.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
You're right. But it isn't hard to learn with a deliberate effort to do so.
You have to treat it like learning a new programming language. When you do
that, and read a book on it ( i like [http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Editor-
Nutshell-Linda-Lamb/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Editor-Nutshell-
Linda-Lamb/dp/0937175676) ) then it comes together and you start to really
feel like a maestro.

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mtarnovan
For people stuck on windows who would like to try a TextMate-like editor,
check out <http://intype.info> (still in alpha at the moment, but quite
usable).

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hypermatt
I'm a big fan of textmate, probably my favorite utility on the mac. While
things like this and e editor(windows) help, there is still a ton of nice apps
only on the mac. As for the Vi and Emacs people, I rather not spend weeks
customizing my text editor, I just want something that can color code out of
the box and I can get work done.

~~~
krakensden
gedit and kate come to mind, if that's all you desire...

And about ten thousand other editors that use the standard keybindings. The
bundle compatibility seems much more interesting as a feature.

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lucraft
This comment explains why I decided that Redcar would be my next project.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6f2nh/what_do_y...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6f2nh/what_do_you_do_for_a_hobby_project_when_youre/c03o3s6)

This project just lasted longer than most. Other than that, every
justification I could offer has already been written in this comment thread.

(author of Redcar)

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mtts
What won me over to TextMate was the syntax mechanism: it's specifically
geared towards situations where you're mixing more than one language in a
single file (common in web development). Does this editor have that (couldn't
figure it out from the link)?

