[TxMt] Re: How can TextMate be so popular???

[Brian Landau]

Jacob and Steve thanks for such insightful and amusing replies. I sure
could use it after that imbecile posted his message. Guess there's one
born everyday, oh well.

-Brian

On 3/6/07, Jacob Rus <jrus at hcs.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Sorry to dogpile, but your email really made my day.
>
> I'll try to be helpful though. :)
>
> tlm wrote:
> > I just gave TextMate a try...
> >
> > I'm sorry to say it was simply awful, which brings me up against the
> > troubling paradox of TextMate's growing popularity.  This is truly a
> > big conundrum for me, one that I'd love to figure out...
>
> Why is it troubling?  Because it implies other people are understanding
> something you can't figure out and are afraid of missing something, or
> because you feel like TextMate threatens your existing workflow in some way?
>
> > The first thing I learn about working with TextMate is that to open a
> > file I need to use a GUI.  This is a bad start.  I, and all other
> > programmers I know, hate to use the mouse while coding, so I must
> > conclude that TM's developers just do not know their target market.  A
> > very bad sign indeed.  (Yes, I know that one can navigate a GUI with
> > the keyboard, but it is awkward at best, not the kind of action I want
> > to perform often.)
>
> You need not use a gui to open a file, and nothing in TM needs the
> mouse.  Everything can be done from the keyboard.  This is not any more
> awkward than using the keyboard from emacs (okay, damn, that's a bit of
> a nonsense statement, I suppose; I can't imagine anything *more* awkward
> than emacs' command system).
>
> > Fine, let's use the mouse.  I open an HTML file and a JavaScript file.
> > Now I have TWO windows open.  Good grief...  Let's see, in my typical
> > coding session I work on at least a dozen buffers at any one time.  So
> > I suppose that, if I were using TextMate as my text editor, I'd have
> > to wade through at least a dozen windows cluttering my desktop...
> > Strike 2.
>
> Use a project.  One window to rule them all.  Check out the
> documentation: it explains things pretty well.
>
> > In the first 60 seconds or so, TextMate has already managed to look
> > pretty darn awful to me, but I continue on the optimistic assumption
> > that all the flaws I have found so far (which are deal breakers AFAIC)
> > can be "customized away".  (If so my only remaining misgiving would be
> > regarding the supreme lack of customer awareness responsible for not
> > having these hypothetical customizations as standard-out-of-the-box in
> > the first place.)
>
> There's really no need to customize anything away, but I'll agree that
> in this case there seems to be a severe lack of customer awareness, that
> is, awareness by the customer.
>
> > But what followed is simply inexcusable.
> >
> > I visit the JavaScript file and start using F1 to fold blocks of code.
> > The third or fourth one of these F1s results in a beep (and no
> > folding of the block), but no error message is visible anywhere, nor
> > is any other indication of what TextMate is having a problem with.
>
> Hmm, I have no idea what this is.  Hasn't been a problem for me.  The
> folding system could use some improvement though.  It's one of my least
> favorite parts of the app's current design (probably because I use lots
> of markdown and python, where the current system falls down)
>
> > Signalling an error without telling the user what the error is is an
> > example ATROCIOUS software design.  Revoke the developers' licenses,
> > and put them all in jail for software engineering malpractice...
>
> Hmm, you might be on to something here.  And unfortunately, Allan lives
> in Copenhagen, where they seem to be jailing people right and left the
> last few days.  Maybe some police can land on his roof and climb in
> through a window?
>
> > Seriously now, by this point I was already truly astonished that I
> > ever even heard of TextMate to begin with.
> >
> > After scanning the menus and the preferences and finding no clue on
> > why the beep, I decide to try TextMate Help under the Help menu.  I
> > search for "beep" and get nothing; then I search for "error", and get
> > a few hits.  When I visit one of them, there's a lot of stuff on the
> > page, nothing obviously devoted to errors, so I hit Cmd-F to search
> > for the word "error", and all I get is yet another beep.  The same
> > thing happens when I visit other pages in the original results list.
> >
> > What's going on here?  Things have been bad enough so far that I'm
> > suspecting the unthinkable, I'm suspecting that maybe TextMate's HELP
> > pages are not accessible to Cmd-F.  To test this hypothesis, I use
> > Cmd-F to search for a word that I can clearly see on the page in front
> > of me.  Again, I get a beep.  Whaddya know?
>
> Yeah, Apple's help system kinda sucks.  Supposedly they are improving it
> in OS X 10.5.  I'm not too optimistic though, and personally think TM
> should just roll its own help system.
>
> > Please someone tell me how can it be that software like this is not
> > only for sale, but actually SELLING???  What did I miss?
>
> Hmm, I dunno.  What *didn't* you miss?
>
> -Jacob
>

On 3/6/07, Steven W. Riggins <mailinglists at geeksrus.com> wrote:
> I really hate how the patterns fill in the enclosing pattern matches,
> like a ) for (.  What is MORE ANNOYING is that no other app does
> this!  So now I'm in mail typing ( and waiting, waiting, but damnit,
> no closing )!
>
> I really hate that I can edit the source for the bundles.  If it
> needs editing, surely its broken!
>
> Now take the fact that TextMate has forced me to use it for posting
> to my Movable Type Blog.  It was buggy, but I was lured into fixing
> the issues and then I found myself using it.  I even changed my site
> to use tags over categories because it was more flexible and MarsEdit
> could not handle Tags.  Damnit TextMate, even more work I had to do!
>
> I'm really annoyed at the HTML include function.  It was not handling
> \" in variables, until I realized that oh I really should be using
> single quotes anyway.  Shoot that TextMate for making me use proper
> quoting in my include files.
>
> Oh!  And it remembers what files I had open when I quit!  WHAT IS UP
> WITH THAT!  I was writing this steamy letter to my girlfriend in
> markdown (What girl doesn't love markdown syntax) and then I went to
> a friend's place.  I fired up TextMate to edit a config file and
> there was my steamy letter!  Grrrr!  Oh wait, that didn't happen.
> but it does open the files I was last working on in my Xcode projects
> and saves me a bunch of time.  Damnit, now I have to WORK vs. playing
> recent menu chicken dance!
>
> I'm really annoyed that I can modify a bundle and keep a local
> version of just the changes, and they merge with fixes to other
> bundle bits with software updates.  Where is the fun in that?
>
> And since the blogging bundle was written in Ruby, which I had never
> used before, I had to LEARN Ruby to extend it.  To hell with you
> Textmate for giving me a fun excuse to learn a new language!
>
> I can't even begin to tell you how much time I have wasted watching
> screencasts only to learn something useful.  Sheesh!
>
> Oh how could I forget full keyboard navigation.  I find myself in
> Mail.app bonking and beeping because I'm pressing keys it doesn't
> know about.  grr!
>
> I should just go back to TextEdit.
>
> Steve
>