Notepad++ vs. Vim

I believe Notepad++ will meet the needs of the vast majority of Microsoft Windows users looking for a more robust (and free) text editor than Notepad, which comes bundled with the Windows operating system. Notepad++ is packed with features, frequently updated, and consumes little resources. And incredibly, this software is free of charge

Incentivized

If you're doing any sort of text editing, you should consider Vim--once you climb the learning curve, you'll be faster and more efficient at everything you do. Also, Vim is my default search/replace tool--whenever I need to make changes throughout a document, most often, I'll copy and paste into a Vim window so that I can take advantage of regexp-based replacements. Vim isn't for the faint of heart, though--it's hard to learn and super complex. If you use a text editor once or twice a month, or just need a simple way to strip out formatting, Notepad will get you where you want to go without all the confusion.

Incentivized

• Persistent tabs that save content even when shutting down the program or dreaded BSOD
• Vertical selection for multi-line deletes and edits
• Regular expression search & replace
• Quick conversion of encoding and newline characters
• Toggle word wrap and hidden characters
• Lots of plugin support
• Notifies if a file has been changed on disk by another app

Incentivized

• The efficient modal editing makes it very fast to write/edit code as I think of it.
• The customization and wide range of plugins let me do very specific things and automate parts of my workflow.
• The fact that it runs inside a terminal simplifies my window management and just becomes another Tmux window in my workflow.

Incentivized

• It is only available for Windows (sorry, Linux and Mac users!).
• It lacks some of the features of higher-order integrated development environments or code editors like Visual Studio Code, such as integration with Git or other versioning tools.
• It works best for small text files and lighter tasks such as indenting text blocks you copy and paste from elsewhere. You could use this for all your programming needs, but there are better options out there for a primary tool for that purpose.

Incentivized

• Without a doubt the hardest program to learn. It is a completely different paradigm of thinking compared to other editors
• By default it doesn't have lots of fancy features you would find in larger IDE programs like code completion and linking
• It lives in the command line so a user has to be comfortable with this interface

Incentivized

I use it every day for 13 years already and it never disappointed me

Incentivized

There are lot of features to talk about. Especially the usability is good. Everyone can easily to use and user-friendly. Can also update easily. Can also write and execute the programming languages like C, C++ etc. Encoding is also the major feature that helps me a lot and converter as well.

I don't consider the steep learning curve to be a hinderance on the overall usability. I would rate this a ten, but to be honest a lot of people do get hung up at the beginning and just abandon it. However, for people who have made the moderate effort to get over the hump, nothing can be more usable.

Incentivized

I haven't needed to utilize any support related to Notepad++. I guess this is a good thing because I found it to be quite intuitive. There are almost infinite features you can tweak and plugins you can download but I haven't had to do that because Notepad++ is really good right out of the box.

Incentivized

The support is somewhat lacking; Vim doesn't really have support outside of its forums. The forums, while notably good, aren't equal to real support though, and the steep learning curve makes you wish there was a help desk that would assist with all of the basic questions. There are several handy books and guides that can be found, and most implementations of the product come with "vitutor" which walks you through its usage.

Incentivized

If you're looking for a free and feature-rich option with an active plugin ecosystem, extensive language support, and regular expression capabilities, Notepad++ is a strong choice.If you prefer a straightforward, user-friendly interface and don't require as many advanced features, TextPad could be a good fit. TextPad is also an option if you're comfortable with its licensing terms. I use Notepad++ as its free and open source with lot of plugins to play with and modify your code

Incentivized

I think it comes down to usability (and frankly, just preference). There's an old adage that Emacs is a good Operating System with a poor Text Editor! Jokes aside, when looking at different text editors, such as Emacs or Nano, Vim is the one that is usually always preferred because of how simple it is to learn. The learning curve of Vim compared to other text editors just makes it such a natural choice.

Incentivized

• Productivity has increased for developers.
• It's free so instead of buying a piece of software, you can use this to replace many of them that may only specialize in one thing.
• It gives our developers confidence knowing they have such a reliable, free tool at their disposal.

Incentivized

• Steep learning curve means lower than average efficiency at the beginning.
• After getting familiar, it is so efficient that you will never want to use other editors.
• Good return on investment for serious editor/developers, may not be good for casual ones.

Incentivized