Hey all, I am a newbie to linux, running mandrake9.

I was wondering what you all use for programming under linux. is there some good text editor for programmers that does all the fancy syntax colouring and stuff? I really only need it to do java and C.

Also, how would I install this? so far I have only had experience installing stuff with .bin files and .rpm files.

Thanks!

You get the editor VIM...
%vim filename

It supports syntax highlighting for a large variety of languages, C,CPP, PERL, Python, Java, HTML etc etc. It comes under every standard distro and u don't have to install any additional .rpms and stuff. try man vim or get some good tutorials, 'cos vim is damn powerful.

Definitely vim.

Don't listen to vanquisher, as vim is just a text editor. If you are serious about programming, use emacs. It is not only an editor, but also an IDE for almost all languages you know and languages you have not even heard of. It will be a little difficult to learn at first, but the result will be worth it. Try the emacs tutorial that comes with emacs itself to familiarize yourself.

VIM

that is one of the most absurd statements i have ever heard. just code folding alone(a feature emacs lacks) is enough to show vim is way more than just a text editor, i also think you'll find that it has more support for different languages/files than emacs has but i may be wrong there.

insom: both vim and emacs are perfectly acceptable and both very capable fully fledged ide's, they can both be treated as simple editors if thats all you want from them. i would make the choice based on whether you can touchtype or not, if you can vim will be better for you, if you cant then emacs will. as long as you avoid those awful ide's like kdevelop you'll be fine.

oh and they should be installed already, im pretty sure they come with a normal install, if not ther'll be rpm's on your disk, they dont have any weird/wacky dependancies so they should install ok.

I agree with kev82.

If you are looking for a simple GUI text editor with highlighting then you can't really go too far wrong with "kate" either.

I like Kwrite it has highlighting and its a normal X editor and not old console one. Pretty much it wont take you a long time to figure it out, it might take you a lil while to figure out VI or Emacs.

"Vim is just a text editor" in much the same way as "Earth is just a ball of rock."

I like emacs for its syntax coloring, parenthesis/braces matching, automatic code indenting/formatting, and the ability to compile and debug from within emacs. It really is an IDE!

However, the best way to find out which editor is best for you is to spend some time programming in each of them. Plus, it's good to know how to use the other editors in case you need to some day. For example, there are times when I'm working on a Unix box that doesn't have emacs but does have vi. Though I prefer emacs, I know enough about vi to get my work done.

thanks all, I have tried out all of those now, and they are really helpful, thanks!