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halfer / php-tutorial-text

The chapter text for the "I ♥ PHP" project
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Re-consider the section on editors #28

Open halfer opened 6 years ago

halfer commented 6 years ago

The big issue in the section on editors is the links will date too quickly, and are likely to be very stale now.

Is there a good way I can give folks a nice selection of editors while not swamping them, and adding links that do not go out date?

Natfan commented 6 years ago

You could try stylising it like so:

The following are a few tech editors that you can use. Please note that they are not in any particular order.
* Adobe's [Brackets](brackets.io), which has versions for Windows, macOS and Linux.
* Github's [Atom](https://atom.io/) which also has version for Windows, macOS and Linux.
* [Notepad++](https://notepad-plus-plus.org/), a text editor for Windows.
* [Vim](https://www.vim.org/), a modular text editor for Linux, Windows and macOS. [note, I put Linux at the start here as `vi` should be built into most systems, and it was designed with Linux initially)
* [GNU Emac](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/), another modular text editor for Linux, Windows and macOS. [note, same ordering as above for the same reasons]

Please note that while Vim and Emacs are both very powerful editors, they do have a very steep learning curve.
Natfan commented 6 years ago

Also, don't bother with download links. They will become out of date very quickly, and you'll spend more time updating the page than is necessary. If people want to download them, all of those pages that I linked have up to date download links for them. It isn't your job to supply valid download links. :)

halfer commented 6 years ago

It's a difficult one. Some of the users of this material are really beginners, and have not coded before. A choice of editor will be an arcane thing to this audience, and downloading/installing will be a non-trivial undertaking.

But yes, links going out of date is something I want to resolve.

Natfan commented 6 years ago

Honestly, Notepad++ is the best text editor to get started with. It's a no BS, super fast and lightweight program that is really easy to use. Linux has nano and gedit, which should be fine. macOS has TextEdit but if I recall correctly, it's pants. I personally use vim to code on my Mac, so I'm not too sure what lightweight, easy-to-use alternatives there are.