best text editor for programming Python on a Mac

[Christian Gollwitzer]

Am 19.06.16 um 02:12 schrieb Lawrence D’Oliveiro:
> The trouble with vim/vi/whatever, is that it doesn’t work like any
> other editor on Earth.
>
> Pull up any old GUI-based editor you like, for example Windows
> (shudder) Notepad. If there are N characters in your file, then the
> insertion point can be placed at N + 1 positions: in-between two
> adjacent characters, or before the first character, or after the last
> character.
> But not vi/vim. It only lets you place your cursor *on* a character,
> not *in-between* characters.

This is true if you use the text-mode version. I prefer gvim (actually 
macvim on the mac) which feels much more like a modern editor. Once you 
go to insert mode, you won't notice that it is special unless you hit 
Escape. You can place the cursor in between characters, as you said, you 
can backspace to join two lines together, you can push some buttons and 
menu entries to save files, a standard dialog comes up to choose a file etc.
In the original vi, command mode was necessary to get this functionality 
- even to move the cursor or delete a character - but with gvim/macvim 
you get both a standard/modern interface in insert mode and the commands 
if you need them.

> That’s why you need two separate
> insertion commands, insert-before and insert-after.

I rarely do "a" because pushing "i" and then cursor-right does the same 
in vim, even in the text mode variant you can move the cursor after the 
last character.

	Christian