Code editors for software developers

Code editors – an essential part of every software developing. Every code editor has its own interface, functionality, pros & cons. That’s why I decided to reveal the most known code editors that will help you write your next projects’ code more efficient.

Top 9 Code editors for software developers

So here is a list of most known code editors that we can recommend for every professional and beginner in code writing. 

Notepad++

Notepad++ is one of the most common editors that developers use to type a code in. There is nothing extraordinary to learn about and it’s an easy-to-use tool that can be used on Windows with its light footprint and interface. For those who needs more specific features, you can easily install supporting plugins and extend the functionality to the maximum.

Benefits

• Supports Syntax Folding and Syntax Highlighting;
• Auto-completion of words, functions and much more;
• Comes with WYSIWYG and multi-view support;
• Extensible using plugins;
• Free.

Atom

Atom was created by GitHub platform and is free of charge to be used. Being developed in 2014 it is the youngest code editor tool on our list and managed to secure a strong foothold among developers. Quite often, users compare Atom with Sublime Text, as well as choose Atom because of its command palette and easy to use negative interface.

It is supported by CoffeeScript language and everything is on GitHub in the open-source, so if this editor you like and you are familiar with CoffeScript, you can supplement it with their own ideas.

Benefits

• Highly customizable with almost 2,000 theme variations
• Supports plugins to extend its functionality, with thousands of options available
• Includes a flexible autocompletion system
• Customizes how each language appears on your editor
• Available for Windows, Linux, and OS X operating systems

Sublime Text 3 

Sublime Text 3 is a cross-platform text editor that supports most of the programming languages and has Syntax Highlighting. You can also install a plugin supporting Python programming language. The program is often used as a source code editor or HTML. Talking about visual part, the editor contains various visual themes, with the possibility of downloading additional ones. There are several screen model, the one of which is 1 to 4 panels when you can see 4 files on a screen.

Benefits

• Quick Navigation; easy to use with excellent UI and UX
• Command Palette accessibility to snippets, setting, etc.
• Plugins API in Python
• Simultaneous editing (Split Editing)
• A high degree of customization (Customize Anything)
• Sublime text is easy to use with excellent UI and UX.

Ultra Edit

UltraEdit is a shareware text and HTML editor and hexadecimal HEX editor for 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, created primarily for programmers, as well as ordinary users who are not satisfied with the modest functionality of Notepad++. 

It has extremely many functions, although it is a text editor, not a processor.

Benefits

• Provides plenty of customization options via themes
• Can handle massive files with ease
• Comes with some of the most powerful search functions in the market
• Includes a smart code completion feature that supports most languages
• Syntax highlighting in PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript

Coda 2

Coda 2 code editor supports Mac Text editor and it is created for the flashy programmer who loves speed and customization of code in a single line. This edition includes essential features like code session of your syntax, uploading and revealing your blog pages. Its Transmit Turbo Engine give you the power to upload code from remote location also.

Benefits

• Core features are integrated into a compact format
• All-in-one code editor, uniting different web development tools under one
• Auto code completion

TextMate

TextMate brings Apple’s approach to operating systems into the world of text editors that has become one of the most popular ones for this operation system. Includes ready-made libraries of macros and snippets of source code or text (snippets), suitable for reuse for many programming languages.

Benefits

• CSS-like Selectors to Pinpoint the Scope of Actions and Settings
• Foldable Code Blocks
• Support for More Than 50 Languages
• Declarative Language Grammars for Graceful Mixing and Hacking

Gedit (for linux)

Gedit is a full support for internationalized text, supporting syntax highlighting for various languages like C, C++, Java, HTML, XML, Python, Perl and many others 

Benefits 

• Editing files from remote locations
• File reverting
• Auto indentation
• Backup files
• Configurable fonts and colors
• A flexible plugin system which can be used to dynamically add new advanced features

Vim (ex Vi)

Vim is a free text editor created on the basis of the older Vi. Nowadays it is one of the most powerful text editors with complete freedom of customization and automation, possible due to extensions and add-ons. The user interface of Vim can work in pure text (console) mode. One of the main features of the editor is the use of two main, manually switched, input modes: command and text. Vim is not intuitive (except for “text” mode), so effective work with the editor requires preliminary training.

Benefits

• Persistent, multi-level undo tree
• The extensive plugin system
• Support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats
• Powerful search and replace
• Integrates with many tools
• Completely keyboard based operations supported.
• Can be used in a remote development environment using a terminal over SSH.
• Vim can be customized to heart’s content using .vimrc dotfile and VimScript.
• Enhances productivity and performs great with large files.

Nano

Nano is a console text editor for Unix and Unix-like operating systems, based on the curses library and it is distributed freely. This code editor is known for its user-friendly interface.

Benefits

• Autoconf support
• Goto-line# command with or flag
• Case sensitive search function
• Interactive search and replace
• Slang and curses support
• Autoindent ability
• Displayed tab width option
• Regular expression search and replace
• Toggles for cmd line flags via Meta keys
• Tab completion when reading/writing files

I  hope you find the information useful. Of course, there are many different code editors for programmers and developers, but I hope that these 9 top ones will help you to increase the productivity & efficiency while coding.

I would love to know your opinion in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive latest news in the software world!