Talk:Source code editor

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[edit] Redirect to Text editor?

Regular users can't use text editor and most text editor user are programmers. So I don't see why there is a need for a separated page mentioning the same thing. --Minghong 10:30, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, structural languages like XML are not "source code" in the traditional sense. I used to do a lot of work with text editors, back when I was a "regular user". :) func(talk) 03:59, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] from Vfd

On 10 Mar 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. The result was keep. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Source code editor for a record of the discussion. —Korath (Talk) 17:52, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Well-known" editors

I added a note to the list section that any additions will be reverted if they aren't discussed here first. The addition of "Kate" prompted me to do this, a SCE I have never heard of, for a development environment I have never heard of either. It seems incredibley niche, but I didn't revert it (for now). But lists like this have a tendancy to balloon on Wikipedia—people "spam" the list with their pet additions, in hopes of popularizing them. So from now on, if one wishes to add an SCE to the list, I'd like it to be discussed here and agreed upong first. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:39, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for not discussing before adding. I'm new here. Kate is part of the kdebase package, and is the default editor on any KDE desktop. (If there is such thing as a "default" editor) --Ropez 19:30, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
To clarify, KDE is big in Linux, making Kate more popular than a lot of the others listed.
However, Kate and some others may not qualify for a more complex reason. Is there a difference between a "Source Code Editor" and an "editor that edits text files, some of which could be source code"? If we make no distinction, someone could add "Notepad". --A D Monroe III 20:03, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree that general text editors don't qualify for the list. However, KDevelop is for software development, but has no text editor. Kate is the editing component. The combination Kate/KDevelop must qualify as a source editor, just like the editing component of Visual Studio is on the list. Whether it is "well known" is very hard to say for any editor. One way to tell is to use google search results. I tried some:
"scite" - 142.000, "editpad" - 143.000, "editplus" - 155.000, "bbedit" - 372.000, "emacs" - 3.700.000, "hessling editor" - 5.430 and finally: "kate" (obviously a lot), ("kate+editor" - 1.480.000 edit: lot of "fake" results) "kde+kate" - 184.000, "kdevelop" - 607.000 --Ropez 22:12, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I added the ISPF/PDF Editor to the list. This was one of the first, released 30 years ago, and is still the major editor for programmers on mainframe systems. Versions have been written for various PC systems, running under TRS-DOS, Linux, and Windows. T-bonham 06:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Well-known" editors -- list order

I changed this list to be in alphabetical order, instead of just random order. Might be better to have it listed with the most frequently used first, but that would probably lead to 'religious-type' wars. T-bonham (talk) 03:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for being a Source Code Editor

I propose that we qualify the editors listed here by a precise criteria of features. To be a source code editor, rather than just a text editor, it must have most of the features listed in Comparison of text editors, subsection Programming features. --A D Monroe III 1 July 2005 19:49 (UTC)

[edit] Needs cleanup

First paragraph okay, rather chaotic later. Suddenly goes to talk about mode-based editors etc.

[edit] SlickEdit

I'm the first to revert spamming of articles, but I don't think my addition of SlickEdit to the list was spam (my addition of it was reverted). It's a widely used source code editor and is probably more deserving than some of the other programs in the list, such as Visual Studio, which isn't a source code editor at all, but an IDE. Don't get me wrong, I love Visual Studio, but to use it just to edit source code would be rediculous. So, I'm lobbying for agreement to allow it to be added.

While I'm at it, I'd lobby for NEdit as well. Any objections to either? — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

well, there's a notice in the html comment to really keep the list short; just the typical editors for each platform. Maybe add a separate article so everyone can list his pet editor (with possibility to add an overview of features or something like that); ...--LimoWreck 19:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

That's funny--I might've been the one that added that HTML comment, but didn't see it when I added SlickEdit! Okay, I can see Visual Studio as being the predominant SCE for Windows; most Windows developers use it w/o using a seperate editor. Not a big deal, it is already in the list of text editors, so I'll leave it at that. Thanks for the response. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:13, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

The list of text editors might be an appropriate place indeed, as there would indeed be a lot of duplicate information between a list of source code editors and a list of text editors... --LimoWreck 21:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SciTE

What about SciTE that is the best source code editor I've ever seen.

You should add it to the list.

[edit] source code only

What about those things that won't let you type/save code with invalid syntax? Is there a name for that?

For example, consider Atari BASIC. Your program was stored in a tokenized representation, possibly a parse tree. The computer did not retain the text you wrote. When you asked to see your code, the computer pretty much did a disassembly from that tokenized representation. As a side effect, this enforced a particular style of whitespace and such -- you got pretty printing every time.

Of course, only BASIC could be typed into that editor.

I think it's been done elsewhere, maybe for FORTH.

24.110.145.202 02:03, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

That is what came first in my mind, too, when I saw the talk about source code editors.
This kind of integrated editors were built-in in most home computers back in the eighties. They usually check the syntax immediately and tokenize the code, so that it is impossible to enter a syntactically incorrect line in the program. In Sinclair ZX-80, ZX81 and Spectrum, you could even enter the keywords (such as PRINT) with a single key press. I think this kind of editor is the only real source code editor. It can only be used for editing the source code. All the editors listed on this page are just text editors. And most text editors these days have features for source code editing.
-- PauliKL (talk) 17:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)