http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2006/10/31/ bright_patient_design.html
<snip> I'm not a power user, but I know what I expect out of a good editor and, well, BBEdit is a good editor, but whenever I fire it up I feel like I forgot to read some imaginary manual called, "BBEdit Rocks. Really." I suspect the fact that I didn't grow up with BBEdit is part of the issue. The fact that I'm a pure Mac OS X guy with zero pre-Mac OS X experience probably contributes to feeling like I'm missing part of the BBEdit joke. Yeah, Zap Gremlins. Ha ha. I get it. Clever, but great design?
My BBEdit ambivalence allows me to check out new editors as they stream across my consciousness and, to BBEdit's credit, it's lasted four years. I've test driven several editors during that time and BBEdit remained my technical tool of choice, but it was only a matter of time until someone else knocked my socks off.
The buzz around TextMate started many months ago, but it's when folks started to ask me to order it that I started to pay attention. There is no copy protection known to man that any bright engineer can't circumvent, so when an engineer asks you to purchase the software they're saying, "This is the shit. We should pay these guys for this fine piece of work."
You bet I downloaded it.
After two steady months of TextMate, I'm happy to declare it my editor of choice because it demonstrates a design philosophy I love. Bright, Patient Design. I'll explain
... </snip>
j.