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I love TextMate on the Mac. Personally I think it's the best thing since sliced bread :)

The only problem is that it's not cross platform and it's not available when you're connecting over SSH into a server to fix some problems. I use Vi most of the time to just edit configuration files, etc, but I found it lacks the power I need for doing serious hacking (for all the vi lovers out there, I'm willing to admit this is due to my ignorance).

I'm re-trying to learn Emacs to do some Erlang hacking but I've always been turned off the by the relatively cryptic key combinations.

Print yourself an emacs cheatsheet, key combinations get a little cryptic but they are the fastest way to interact with an editor (I think its probably good to use them even in other editors)

This sheet's a little basic, but its a start: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/guides/package/emacs/emacs.html

Aquamacs is a pretty good crutch if you want to wean yourself off of standard keyboard shortcuts slowly. Basically, 'Cmd' + key does the Emacs thing most closely corresponding to the usual thing a Mac program would do. Cmd-O for Open, Cmd-X to cut, etc. This works because the main Emacs key combinations use Ctrl, of course.

Cure for cryptic key combinations:

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki?CuaMode

Why regular Vi and not Vim?

You are right, I actually use Vim not Vi, I don't like Vi much as it doesn't seem to like certain things, like key movements in insert mode.

there are no movement commands in insert mode (to my knowledge) in vi

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