Text editor recommendations

[petevg at gmail.com]

> <madanabhat27 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was wondering which is the text editor you'd recommend for me

Different people have differing, but strong, opinions about this
subject, but here's the executive summary:

gedit ("Text Editor"), in the Ubuntu menus, and nano, on the command
line, are simple text editors that behave a lot like Notepad.

emacs and vi are both powerful text editors that allow you to do many
tasks without moving your hands far from the home row on the keyboard
(they're basically heaven for keyboard shortcut lovers).  vi
accomplishes this by having different "modes", in which the keys do
different things.  In command mode, for example, the "J" key will move
you to the next line, while in "Insert" mode, it will just allow you
to type the letter J.  Emacs accomplishes this via "chords" that you
play on the keyboard.  [Ctrl] [X], [Ctrl] [S] saves a file, for
example, and [Ctrl] [N] moves you one line down in the file.

Both have a steep learning curve.  Once you've learned them, both
allow you to do complex tasks much more quickly and easily than
notepad.  Picking between the two is a matter of taste.  I tend to
prefer chording to the cognitive overhead of remembering what mode I
am in; others dislike the chords, and like the simplicity of the vi
commands.

hth,
~ PeteVG