[Logikos]

Originally Posted by Velocd

Pico is about the equivalent of notepad's functionality, but for Unix.

I also can't understand how people use notepad. Early in the summer when I was hired for a programming job in PHP/MySQL, another employee on my team, a graduate student, was intending to use notepad for the entire job. I couldn't quite understand it, but I quickly directed them to Textpad.

If you want simple interface that is easy to maneuver, Textpad is as easy as Notepad.

Notepad lacks in these most basic, but performance enhancing, options:

• Auto-tab, convert tab to spaces, setting tab space number. These are important for making your code readable across all platforms.
• Syntax highlighting. One of the most useful features of all good text editors.
• Search & Replace (w/regex capabilities)
• Display line numbers!
• Document tabs, & document tree. For opening multiple files in one workspace. Also the option of being able to save a workspace is a time saver.
• Auto-saving
• Multi-user friendly: granted most vB people work on projects solo, but if you're ever in a situation where you are working in a team on the same programming files, you'll want your text editor to tell you if somebody has remotely saved (write) a file you have open. Otherwise you'll have version differences, which will lead to a mess. Notepad will not warn you whatsoever if the opened file was edited somewhere else.

I wouldn't use Pico/Notepad for full backend hacking now. It's mainly used for bug fixes. Otherwise i use Arisesoft WinSntax.