What Alternative Text Editors Does DEV Use? (Not VS Code 🐱‍👓)

Hey DEV!

I'm a huge fan of VS Code, and I use it for pair programming and occasionally when I want to use one of the awesome extensions that the VS Code community has provided.

However, I'm also a fan of diverse marketplaces. I don't really like the idea that the vast majority of developers I interact with use the same text editor.

I'm the kind of person that uses Ubuntu, Firefox, and DuckDuckGo. Not just because they are great tools (I think I'm having a better time on Ubuntu than the last year I spent on MacOS, honestly), but because I don't like the idea of a single company controlling a market.

For that reason, I wanted to start a conversation about alternatives to VS Code.

I use Spacemacs, which is a set of Emacs configurations that essentially combine the Emacs and Vim text editors. I really like that I don't have to do much tweaking out of the box, but I still have a lot of the power found in both Vim and Emacs.

Spacemacs 👽

What alternatives do you use? Or, if you don't what about VS Code keeps you from using something else?

Comments

[Vishnu Dileesh]

I love the minimalism of using NeoVim

[Johan Lindstrom]

This is the real power of Emac's evil-mode (used by Spacemacs):

We can now look down upon both Emacs and Vim users :)

[Honza]

Youngster! 🤣The youth today has no respect for traditional feuds!

[easrng]

I use the EDLIN editor from MS-DOS. I run it online. For real though, I use;

• For web stuff, I use Glitch as a dev environment, and export to GitHub, so that's CodeMirror
• I use MS notepad/Notepad++/Leafpad/Mousepad for small things, depending on what system I'm on.
• I use nano for most other editing
• Also, Geany is cool, and I use it when I open it accidentally.

[Itachi Uchiha]

If someone teaches me how to use emacs, I will use it.

[Reaper]

I’ll have to say, i keep switching between vscode and vim. Every now and then I gove Sublime Text a chance and it surprises me with its speed and then I see the outdated plugins and shift back to vim or vscode.

[mareksamec]

Notepad++ on Windows (I open variaues EDI formats, java, SQL etc.). It is simple, small, portable and very powerful. Ocassionally I switch to vim within Cmder or gVim as for some tasks it is faster. It is really great to start gVim with zenburn theme and airline. I even added buttons to Total Commander for this. This is myconfig:

set t_Co=256
set guifont=Consolas:h10

" Colors and themes
"colorscheme gruvbox
colorscheme zenburn
"set background=light

"### Hide gvim UI elements
set guioptions-=m  "menu bar
set guioptions-=T  "toolbar
set guioptions-=r  "scrollbar


" Directory and file settings
set bsdir=last
set lines=999 columns=999

"Airline settings
let g:airline_theme='molokai'
"let g:airline_solarized_bg='light'

" ### Some gvim specific keyboard mapping
"
"Remap double Escape to exit vim:
:nnoremap <Esc><Esc>  :q<CR>

On unix/linux environments I use mainly*vim* with pretty much bare config as I cannot change it on the servers.

[Diego Toral]

I tried a lot of editors (gedit, emacs, atom, vscode, etc) and different configurations for vim. I even used vim for a few years but where I'm really comfortable programming is on Sublime Text with the NeoVintageous plugin. I kind of enjoy mixing mouse and keyboard.

[Jesse Phillips]

I use Vim and visual studio (without the code).

I pre-ordered onivim.io/

That looks promising. VS code support but native vim.

[Zen]

Is Spacemacs code editor inside Terminal?

I always use Sublime

[David Rushton]

I spend a lot of time writing T-SQL. I love Azure Data Studio (MS fork VS Code) and mssql-cli.

I often open the same project is several editors & switch back and forth based on their strengths. Example: Azure Data Studio has a fanstasic text editor but query plans are clearer in SSMS.