Ask HN: Coda, Textmate, or Espresso for development?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1945636

by fourstar • 16 years ago

3 6 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm currently using TextMate, but I've heard good things about the other two. Particularly for being all-in-one development tools.

What are you using? Can you please tell me the pros/cons of each?

All comparison websites I've found are a bit outdated, so I'm assuming a lot of newer/wanted features have been released in each since.

soapdog• 16 years ago

I have both textmate and espresso and tried coda for a while. I am staying with textmate and I am doing it not because textmate is better than the other two but because it does the job the way I expect it to. Even though I bought espresso, I never used it, it came with a bundle and I was very excited about it but in the end, my workflow is already working and instead of switching to a new app, I decided to learn emacs and slowly switch to it because it enables me to code on my mac and on my linux box with the same tools.

TextMate Pros: * if you need a text editor, you will love it * the bundles are great * works as expected * customizable

TextMate cons: * you need extra tools such as ssh, ftp and the like * it has no nice GUI for visually doing stuff such as css (the cons are rational cons but they don't affect my job)

fourstar2• 16 years ago

Thanks for the reply. I feel the same way with TextMate just working how you'd expect.

Maybe I'll pick up Coda one day, but it looks like I'll stay with TM for now.

terrellm• 16 years ago

I really see Coda/Espresso and Textmate filling two different roles rather than competing head-to-head.

For Rails development and other scripting, I use Textmate. I appreciate the extensive syntax highlighting, extendability through bundles, and the wide selection of themes. The lack of FTP built into Textmate isn't really an issue as I use Capistrano for deployment via command line.

For editing my marketing websites, basic PHP scripting, or anytime I need to edit and FTP files, I use Coda. It's a great all-around solution and almost worth buying a Mac just for it (and Textmate).

I tried Espresso after having used Coda for a while and just couldn't make the switch despite being a big fan of their CSSEdit. I primarily blame that on me getting so used to working with Coda.

fourstar2• 16 years ago

I think I'll pick up Coda eventually, but for now, I really like how TextMate works.

Capistrano is new to me, albeit interesting. Thanks for the recommendation.

jeremyjarvis• 16 years ago

Of course, it depends on what you're developing for/in. I used to really like skEdit, but it suffered from lack of development.

findm• 16 years ago

I've used coda for awhile now i actually prefer the simplicity of textmate. Coda can lag when you get to a few hundred lines and mo code collapsing was always a pain for me.

Ask HN: Coda, Textmate, or Espresso for development?

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