Headcount
xlono01
I see that most of the topics in this forum are the technical ones. I
don't want to go off topic, but I would like to hear what other
members think.
It took me quite a while to find a free text editor which I would
found good enough for daily use. After long long time, Scite won for
me, and as far as my opinion is, it is currently the best free editor
for creating software.
Don't you think that Scite would deserve a bit more popularity than it
has now?
I am not saying that I can do it and make Scite more popular. I am
just trying to say that getting more people to know about Scite might
be beneficial to both Scite and its users.
Regards,
Ondrej
KHMan
> I see that most of the topics in this forum are the technical ones. I
> don't want to go off topic, but I would like to hear what other
> members think.
Don't worry, it's on topic. A lot of us contribute bits and pieces
and thus this is not our main FLOSS project, so a lot of the
discussion tend to be short development snippets.
> Don't you think that Scite would deserve a bit more popularity than it
> has now?
Disregarding Emacs and Vim users, not everyone else thinks this is
the greatest editor. A user has to be comfortable with tweaking
property files and later learning advanced stuff to unlock the
editor's potential. Often, this is not a good fit with
non-programmers. Programmers, on the other hand, are often
fiercely loyal to their editor or IDE tool.
In the past, there have been people jumping in to complain why
there isn't any dialog box based configuration... For one, we
don't act like lemmings and insist that XML is the most awesome
thing for the format of configuration files. Those niches I guess
we let other editors fill it. As a user, I think SciTE fits my
style, but it isn't for everyone.
> [snip]
--
Cheers,
Kein-Hong Man (esq.)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Philippe Lhoste
> Don't you think that Scite would deserve a bit more popularity than it
> has now?
It is quite popular and well known, actually. I see it mentioned from time to time in
Stack Overflow, for example (often by me, but that's a detail... :-)).
Granted, Notepad++ is mentioned more often, which I don't mind: it is a fine editor too,
based on the same great source code editing component (Scintilla), and it remained of
reasonable size despite it is full of nice features (the TextFX and the plugin menus are
excellent). And it might offer a more familiar/easier interface for changing settings (all
GUI based), as KHMan points out.
Despite having Notepad++ on disk and recommending it from time to time, I stick to SciTE,
partly by habit, partly for the Lua scripting (I do my own TextFX!), and well, the
.properties file doesn't scare me... :-)
A killer feature for Notepad++ is the XDebug plugin (for debugging PHP).
Notepad2 is good too, in its spartan way (very lightweight, close of Notepad which it aims
to replace, single file editing).
There is also Programmer’s Notepad <http://www.pnotepad.org/> (those are original names!
:-P) which I haven't tried yet (or a long time ago) but looks good (it is scriptable with
Python).
And so on, there are lot of good editors (and IDEs) based on Scintilla.
To go back to your topic, I don't think we need to evangelize SciTE (beyond what we do
now), the world of text editors is crowded and each developer has its likes and dislikes,
and a strong opinion on what a good editor must be (ultra-portable, Swiss tool doing
everything, very lightweight, highly scriptable, vi-style vs. emacs-style, etc.).
SciTE has lot of qualities and comes a long way since its state of Scintilla demo. It is a
bit rough for some tastes (the properties system, which confuses newbies but proves to be
very flexible and powerful), it might be a reason for not being the de facto most popular
editor in the world... ^_^
Anyway, welcome to our world! (and our mailing list).
--
Philippe Lhoste
-- (near) Paris -- France
-- http://Phi.Lho.free.fr
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
KHMan
> On 09/12/2008 17:59, xlono01 wrote:
>> Don't you think that Scite would deserve a bit more popularity than it
>> has now?
>
> To go back to your topic, I don't think we need to evangelize SciTE (beyond what we do
> now), the world of text editors is crowded and each developer has its likes and dislikes,
> and a strong opinion on what a good editor must be (ultra-portable, Swiss tool doing
> everything, very lightweight, highly scriptable, vi-style vs. emacs-style, etc.).
Rambling on on this thread...
So to put it in terms of marketing to xlono01, programmer editors
is a genre that is highly competitive, if we try too hard with
"overt marketing" or "push", then we may suffer blowback. It is
also not suitable to use "show-biz" or "brand-name" strategies,
e.g. Ruby on Rails, Groovy, AJAX, because those are tied with
programmers who provide consultancy, blogging or books, and a need
to capture mindshare. Plus, sustained effort on marketing takes
effort, and in our case, the payback is limited.
Like Philippe says, as a community, we largely end up doing sorta
"passive" evangelizing. We mention it in places, though not trying
too hard or else it may sound desperate. I mention it in the small
utilities I put up at LuaForge. The Scintilla edit control goes
places. It not a 'religion' to be forced on fellow programmers,
but we put up opportunities for people to stumble upon it so that
they may discover it on their own, and we leave them to make up
their own mind.
But we are not the gatekeepers or rulers of policy or anything
here, so if there are ideas worth discussing, please share... :-)
bogdan...@gmail.com
> It not a 'religion' to be forced on fellow programmers,
> but we put up opportunities for people to stumble upon it so that
> they may discover it on their own, and we leave them to make up
> their own mind.
>
that's how i found scite :D
after searching and testing alot of "evangelized" editors i found a
reference in a mailing list or something... while searching for a
totally different thing.
imo a good way to make it more "popular" is to add more
resources/tutorials (for creating color themes?, a dark theme it's a must)
even starting a small forum i think it will be good.
KHMan
Yeah, they would be useful. That's where the Google Groups
features can be useful. ATM you can upload files, but not edit web
pages. Starting small would be good, because chances are few
people will jump in to help. Unlike lkml, projects like this are
very resource-scarce, so contributors sorta have to be
self-propelled. Sustaining any effort is even more difficult.
SourceForge have wiki services too, which can have limited edit
permissions. It's okay to use, I suppose I can't whine too much
about a free service, but it's very slow from this part of the
planet. Lua scripts for SciTE have a corner in the Lua wiki site,
but not general SciTE stuff. Suppose someone wants to start a
community wiki, wikis do need manpower for maintenance and
monitoring, else edit permissions have to be restricted.
A lot of community material on SciTE is currently scattered
throughout the 'net, but bringing them together might or might not
be feasible. Still, these options are worth exploring or discussing...
bfisher
> but not general SciTE stuff. Suppose someone wants to start a
> community wiki, wikis do need manpower for maintenance and
> monitoring, else edit permissions have to be restricted.
>
> A lot of community material on SciTE is currently scattered
> throughout the 'net, but bringing them together might or might not
> be feasible. Still, these options are worth exploring or discussing...
a common place. Plugins, translations, scripts, source patches, and so
on. I had in mind something beyond Google groups uploading or a
SourceForge wiki. I mentioned this a few months ago, but have been too
busy with school.
But finals are almost over and now I have the time to start this.
I have MediaWiki installed and set up on a server, and after I add a
bit of organization, and maybe some customizations to suit the purpose
of this, it should be ready to go live soon .
-Ben
James Cuenod
I'm interested in how many people on the list would be interested in a
site like this...
I'm picturing a forum for discussions about development and usage issues
perhaps an ideas section and space for bug reports etc. That would be a
sort of open section without the "stringent" entrance requirements for
the googlegroup discssion.
There could also be a wiki where access is limited (for editing) to
people who are on this list (this is still in conceptual phase...):
The wiki could include documentation on the settings in properties
files, lexer development, Lua scripting etc. basically for anyone who
wants to know what SciTE is capable of and how to put its capabilities
into action.
The wiki could also be a place where additional programs (or plugin type
software) could be uploaded for stuff like software that would give a
gui interface to properties files.
Please feel free to add to or alter whatever you like in the description
I have just given.
So who would actually use something like this?
Regards,
James Cuénod
--
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ
Neil Hodgson
> I'm picturing a forum for discussions about development and usage issues
> perhaps an ideas section and space for bug reports etc.
While there may be some point to an informal bug report section
that is easy to use, the current tracker on SourceForge, despite its
faults, does work, is familiar to many and contains a long history of
existing faults that can be searched.
Neil