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

[Rob Shearer]

One of the most effective trolls I've seen in a long while; you'd  
think list members could have been tipped off by someone who actually  
subscribed to the users mailing list after using the application for  
no more than two minutes...

We've got self-contradictory complaints ("How dare files open in  
separate windows!"/"The interface should be completely intuitive for  
new users!"), vague and easily-refuted shortcomings ("I want to open  
a file using the keyboard! But without Command-O! Or the terminal!"),  
disingenuous incredulity ("I can't believe the help system would be  
so arcane!" from an Emacs user), and outright insults for both the  
developer and the entire user community.

In fact, I'd say the main weakness of the posting is that he  
accidentally hit on a couple of genuine issues in TM. The foldings  
system---although elegant---just isn't sophisticated enough (but I  
think all Python users have realized this), and the project-vs- 
multiple-window system is genuinely challenging for new users---I'm  
still having trouble figuring it out completely, and while I may  
ultimately decide that it does actually work just how I'd like it's  
been frustrating getting used to it.

I don't think TextMate is perfect, but I think $50 was a bargain for  
the best text editor I've ever used. I'd pay again for a version  
which addressed the above shortcomings. (As well as fixing char-by- 
char undo. Has anyone ever mentioned that?)

-rob

On 6 Mar 2007, at 17:58, 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...
>
> 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.)
>
> 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.
>
> 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.)
>
> 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.
>
> 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...
>
> 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?
>
> Please someone tell me how can it be that software like this is not
> only for sale, but actually SELLING???  What did I miss?
>
> tlm
>
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