I kind have to tell something about me, since it better helps understanding my position.
I chose MacOS X as my main developing platform. Of course it happens to write software meant to run on GNU/Linux (or other *nix flavours) or even on Win. Usually when this happens I'm using a cross platoform technology. I never wrote something longer than 100 lines with the WinAPI, for example.
Before I used GNU/Linux, fBSD and even before other unices (OSF1) and MacOS "Classic". This is my background. I never quite got exposed to windows. So my point is unusual: most people come from windows to other platforms. To me is quite the contrary (a part that I don't "go" to windows, I just happen to use it from time to time).
About programming environments, I've done (and do) lots of things. I like high level languages, such as Python or Ruby. I like ObjectiveC and Cocoa (of course this won't be in our comparison...). But also do a lot of low level C coding with the POSIX api (well I did... right now I prefer to do it in Python), develope some software in C++, I'm going to graduate with a project in Prolog. I quite like XML and CSS and I also have to use some Java and some calculus (both Matlab and C -- no, I don't quite master Fortran)
So my skills are not particulary vertical (for example someone who does all his job in the XML processing fields, or numeric calculus). They range in many different fields (this does not mean I'm really "guru" in each of them, on the contrary I've got much to learn).
Editors
Basically those who work in the Linux community used to share in equal parts between Emacs and vim. There used to be some other editors (nedit), but that was the story. Recently I've seen a lot interest around IDEs (kdevelop, anjuta) and some "lesser" editors have reached the status of full programmer's editors. Among these Scite and Kate, for example. Moreover HTML/web centric editors have also increased their popularity.
On the other side the Windows community has always been more IDE oriented. There were the Borland products, Microsoft Visual Studio, Wacom. The most used web environments were Dreameaver and Homesite (now builtin in dw).
Of course there were also a bunch of editors.
Linux pt. 1
If I have to work on Linux, I've got no problems of any sort. I'm average skilled both in vim and in Emacs and I can make it. I do use Aquamacs (an Emacs version) even on the MacOS: once I preferred vim, but right now I need some things Emacs has and vi hasn't (a decent Prolog mode, for example).
Windows
About an year and an half/two years ago I had to develop an application with Twisted. For a 0-based array of reasons I used Windows as my main developement environment. I installed entought python (and in those times there was no Python 2.4, so no problem), I put Twisted 1.3 on the top of it and chose gvim. Gvim is beautifully integrated with windows. Of course it acts quite much like vim does (i don't like the evim variant). I did it. Still I wasn't using windows. I cloned my linux environment on Windows. And it is what I made when I had to code some C++ with mingw and so on.
I chose to use gvim not because I really wanted to, but because other editors were really priced or poor. Yes I tried scintilla too. Not particulary poor, of course not priced... but in fact too simple.
Windows and MacOS
If you compare the situation with the MacOS it's tragic. MacOS has many "simple" editors that I do not really like (but some love SubEthaEdit or Smultron), but it has also BBEdit (the best web editing environment I've seen, much better than dreamweaver and priced 199$ - 129$ for TextWrangler users -- TW is a free editor everybody can download and use ). And it has TextMate: the best general programmer editor a part from Emacs.
UltraEdit (Windows)
Recently I had to do some more work: I tried UltraEdit, priced 39 $. The same as TextMate. A couple of users said it is a wonderful editor and I gave it a try. Out of the box it did not support nor Python nor Ruby. Quite annoying in fact.
I googled the solution and I find I had to copy some strings in a file. The format is awful. Where TM has a lot of small bundles, BBEdit has plugins, UltraEdit has only this big flatfile. Ok. What matters is functionality.
But functionality is missing. For example Python or Ruby indenting is really disappointing. TextMate indents code back and forth to match the syntax of the code. It takes less time to try than to read. If you haven't a Mac, Emacs does it.
TextMate also has lots of ways (and easy one) for saving me from typing lots of code. Snippets are poweful, and I also have commands (snippets are short words or commands that are expandend to full constructs with placeholders to fill in).
I find nothing like this (nothing that simple) in UltraEdit or in Scintilla. Not that Scintilla is not a bad editor. It correctly deals with a lot of languages, the syntax theme is clear and easily readable (I think I should do a "Scintilla Theme" for TextMate one day). With Python/Ruby it lets you run or check syntax directly from editor.
And UltraEdit (in the Studio Version) is a very good "tiny ide"-"enhanced editor" for Java, for example (but we are at 99$). Much better than BBEdit or TextMate in Java editing. It's fast and has some useful basical functions. Of course Eclipse or NetBeans do a lot more stuff, but UltraEdit Studio takes a couple on microseconds to load.
I've not tried it with PHP and HTML (have I already said I don't use PHP?), but it appears to be really good. I just can't stand feature bloated IDEs like DreamWeaver. They tend to make the programmer not to think... but that's another story.
The many windows editors
It could be a matter of taste. Another friend of mine who did a lot of coding in Windows suggested another text editor (I don't even remember the name of the editor -- I still remember my friend's name of course). Probably among all editors out there (more or less shareware) there is the one that suits my taste (a part from the Emacs/gvim variants). Still everybody knows a good way to fuck up a windows installation is to install and try software (I know ghost, but it looks like I've no time to waste to play with software).
GNU/Linux pt. 2
Again... GNU/Linux is quite convenient in this sense. Emacs and vim are wonderful editors (and they are both free and free). They can be extended to do almost everything (think about Emacs mode to make it a Java IDE or the Auctex package).
They are both available for Windows and Mac, but additional packages are not as easy to install (on Debian is a matter of aptgetting...)
About the IDEs... well, KDevelop is told to be really good. Probably For sure it outperforms XCode, but should be not as good as MS Vistal Studio, even if it should support more languages (so if you need one of those...). So depends on what you have to do... anyway it's a really good IDE, nothing to say... but :)
Windows pt 2
I tried some more editors. Notepad++ is nice (but not really suited for Python or Ruby: in this sense Scite is much better).
I tried Komodo, and it's wonderful (and also cross-platform). The best thing it does are easy debugging and intellisense like for dynamic languages (tried with python and ruby, it should work with PHP and Perl too). Unfortunately the full version costs almost 300 bucks. If you don't develop professionally you can buy the "personal or educational" version, that at 29$ is quite affordable.
Anyway some things in Komodo to me look quite akward, while TextMate is as easy as poweful. Of course comparing Komodo to TM in Rails editing is playing dirty. TM is the editor of choice of Rails developers. And Komode has that intellisense... well, I think it should be great (even if I didn't really use it, so I think I'm not really gonna miss it).
I've seen there are a lot of targetted small IDEs that are worth trying, but I'm not gonna spend all my time this way.
Next time I'm gonna talk about databases
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