I always feel a bit “beginner-ish”, but for most quick file edits I use nano (or gnome-text-editor if it’s more extensive and user-accessible). For my Python development I use PyCharm.
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@andreas I’d say you cover quite a broad range with those three editor choices. I know that nano is very modest, perfect for those quick edits. I don’t know what the gnome-text-editor link will provide; more than likely it’s either gedit or some other full-featured editor that’s present in your GNOME configuration. I’ve tried PyCharm, but I don’t really need it because I’m not a heavy Python developer and the editors I do use are at least capable of highlighting Python syntax and follow Python conventions; I never dug into PyCharm enough to know whether it would snag an entire Python module or code block, but based on how big it was when I tried it, I’m sure it provides plenty of Python goodies.
Maybe when you get a few minutes you can describe a few of the features that PyCharm provides when you’re coding or updating Python code.
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Of course! The features I heavily use in PyCharm are:
- Its excellent (and easy to setup) debugger—I’m really used to (and probably spoiled with) that one;
- Its type checking (and whether my type annotations are in accordance with what the functions actually return);
- “Digging” through functions: it’s very simple to dig through source code that way, even for imported packages (unfortunately, it happens quite often I have to inspect what a package I’m using is doing exactly);
- Refactoring of any thing, variable names, file names, folder names;
- I like that you can set it up to have quite strict Python warnings (e.g., for variable initialisation outside of
__init__, cases where a variable might not exist, typing, PEP8, etc.).
But I think the debugger is really the main reason I stick with it. I often have to trace bugs through other packages as well, and the PyCharm debugger allows me to do that quite conveniently.
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Thanks @andreas! Given how “heavy” the PyCharm editor seemed to be back when I installed it to go through many of the editors listed in the @hydn article, your detailed explanation, particularly about the debugger, adequately explains this.
As I explained, the main reason I didn’t stick with it is that the only Python stuff I do is pretty simple - mainly code I copy from elsewhere, alter slightly, for small tasks or tools, and I haven’t done any of that recently, hence no personal need. Nevertheless, being a fan of technology, I most definitely appreciate your explanation and reasoning, so thanks again for noting your usage particularly concerning the debugger!
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Of course, you’re very welcome!
I agree with you that PyCharm is rather heavy, I also don’t use it for simple scripts or small tasks. However, with bigger projects, its power does come in handy.
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I am rust developer, The code editors I use are VScode and NeoVim, Those 2 code editors suit my needs, very well
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Welcome to the community @MarcelStevano, thanks for joining us! 
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@MarcelStevano Greetings and welcome to the forum!
I find applications with a lot of Rust code tend to generate extra heat on my systems, especially the older ones. My Lenovo Thinkpad T14 Gen 3 handles it better but it heats up too, but it finishes what it’s doing and cools back down.
I tried VScode when @hydn shared his original post; it works fine but it’s not my style. Neovim works fine for me. I do use it, but I actually prefer Doom Emacs, which adds a Space leader group of key bindings and extra functions that allow Emacs to easily handle all development tasks; it also has vi key bindings which would be familiar to you.
When you get a chance, tell us more about your work with Rust. Perhaps you can create an article about it.
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I dropped neovim and my current primary is flow
*reason : neovim getting slower & bigger.
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Gonna give flow a try. This is cool:
Toggle the Mode: Press
F4while the editor is open to cycle through the keybinding presets until you reach Vim mode
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I’ve been using Neovim for the past 3(ish) years. I will definitely be giving this a look, thank you for sharing!
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I don’t use it much but I keep notepadqq in case I need to interact with windows users.
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UPDATE: While I’m still using and liking Zed overall, I certainly haven’t yet “put it through it’s paces”, but I’ve not found anything that made me question this move --until today.
Context: I generally use Claude Code to validate my ideas, strengthen my business rules, etc. (Working solo, it is a useful resource to verify my approach and ideas.). I only let it write code in very controlled circumstances.
Issue: Zed team has switched to using ACP instead of native Claude Code CLI. (ACP is Agent Client Protocol which Zed team has pioneered. It is growing in popularity but not fully feature-complete and not officially adopted yet by Anthropic.) So, it’s somewhat hobbled compared to the CLI. Of course, I can switch back to using the CLI in a terminal but without that in-editor integration, it feels I’ve lost something from what I had.
Importantly, using ACP does not actually use my subscription so it doesn’t “cost” anything. But it does limit to only 120-200K tokens before compression sets in. My subscription gives me 1M tokens before hitting compression. That matters for me because I tend to have long, extended chats.
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If I still worked in an office, maybe chat windows would matter, but chances are that in jobs where I had to chat, I probably was given a current generation Windows laptop. I remember having a Thinkpad in one job where I did have a lot of communication taking place, and I’ll give them credit; the laptop had solid specs and the servers I was connected to had redundancy, high performance and were never, not even a single time, a source of any problem. I doubt that we would be using Zed even today in such a scenario. Any other editing concerns? How about navigating through fairly large files? Good searching facilities? How about word by work, paragraph and page navigation? Are you using arrow keys and page presses, navigation bar movement, or some efficient mechanisms other than these?
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(post deleted by author)
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Understand, I’m referring to the chat with Claude not chatting with other people.
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Oh, sorry. You mentioned both editors, but I didn’t detect that it was Claude that provided the chat “name” or features.
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