I've been reading The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master lately. While this book was published in 2000, the overall content is still relevant, even if some of the details are less applicable almost 20 years later (e.g. joining Usenets). Plus, as someone who is the proud owner of a small collection of computer books written before I was born, 2000 is nothing.
One section stood out to me though. "Text Manipulation" - the one on being the master of one (and only one) really good text editor and using it for everything. Initially I dismissed this as good advice, but advice that goes without saying these days. But then I realized I wasn't really following it.
Sure, I'm monogamous with my text editor, and my text editor has all the features the book says are necessary and then some. Gone are my days of writing HTML in Notepad, and it was charming to be reminded that they existed at all. What I'm missing is mastery of my editor, and I think more importantly, loyalty.
The people I've met who use their text editors like wizards are the people who evangelize. Or at the very least they make it clear that they would potentially drop dead if you took it away from them. And it's not as if these people are so loyal to their chosen set-up that they can't use another, they're just very comfortable with what they're doing. It's like what Pragmatic Programmer says and their text editor is like an extension of the person.
That's awesome and I want that. It's not that I don't know how to use a lot of good shortcuts for my text editor, and sometimes I even actually use them. But I think the fact that I still haven't paid for mine (it comes with an indefinite free trial), especially while I'm trying to be better at paying for digital things (after all, I want to be paid to make digital things, it only seems fair) means that I haven't found The One. So I'm going to start trying to use this one to its full extent and also try playing with some others. And who knows, maybe after my journey, I'll come back to what I started with, finding it was my true love this whole time.