The BBEdit Trial

TextMate has been my editor-of-choice since I purchased my first Mac back in 2005. I’ve tried going to Vim, gedit, and some others … but I keep coming back to TextMate.

One I have never really given a fair shake has been BBEdit. Looking back, it is both surprising and unsurprising that I have not done so. First of all, BBEdit was expensive at $100 for a license. Couple that with the fact that it is “old” in the sense that BBEdit has been on the Mac “forever” and I was just not that interested.

Being “old” is something I might have taken into consideration sooner, but with the seeming “death” of TextMate at the moment, the age of BBEdit is one of its greatest strengths. Bare Bones Software has proven loyal to both the program and their customers. Because of that, BBEdit has just hit version 10 and they halved the price to $50 for a license (lower than TextMate’s $58 at the moment).

Hitting version 10 is pretty awesome. Originally released in 1991, I think it is pretty awesome that 20 years later a company is still working on their product and pushing it ahead. That’s a far cry from the seeming “death” of TextMate after only a handful of years in comparison.

So I have the 30-day trial on my machine and it has replaced TextMate on my dock. We will see how the next little while goes and then I will report back with my findings.