Paul Kaiser's Blog

BBEdit: My long lost love

Oh, BBEdit, what have you been up to these days? It’s so sad that we’ve been apart for so many years. It’s even sadder to realize there’s probably not going to be a time soon when we can share time together. I guess we all have to move on. Don’t take it personally… you’re truly the best.

On the lighter side of everything else aflutter these days… I keep trying to switch code editors, but keep going back to the one I’m most used to: PSPad.

PSPad Logo

I found PSPad in 2005, shortly after starting work at the City of Champaign as the Webmaster. I had been working on Macs since 1992, and found myself forced to use Windows XP.

BBEdit has always been my choice of editor on the Mac, all the way back to when I purchased MachTen Unix to run on a PowerMac 7100, and it came bundled with BBEdit. There really just is no substitute. I still miss the fact that BBEdit would see when you had added new functions in your code, and would add that function name to a drop-down menu so you could easily skip to that function.

The PC had UltraEdit, but I did not like its FTP browser, and I wanted to support open source at the City as much as possible. I eventually found PSPad, and it did everything I wanted except for:

• The function menu thing as in BBEdit
• Code folding, as in an old Mac app called Alpha Edit
  (Correction – it is apparently called “Alpha.”)

Oh well — everything else was perfect, including RegEx search and replace.

Notepad++

After I settled in to the City job, though, I really started getting pickier about my tools. The missing function menu and code folding kept nagging me about once a month, so I kept searching whenever I had the time. Eventually, I found Notepad++.

When I first found it, you could not open files via an integrated FTP browser. I was so very used to working this way that I shot down NP++ right away, but left it installed for the soul purpose of code folding when necessary.

Eventually, NP++ integrated FTP browsing. There really is no reason now for me to continue to use PSPad, other than habit! There’s something comforting about bringing up the same code editor I’ve seen  5 days a week for 5 years — an editor that has helped me create some really fantastic work.

Eventually, I’ll have to move on, though. NP++ is more actively developed, and simply has more features I need than PSPad. It may be only a few features, but they’ve become significant.

If only I could work on a Mac again… I’d download TextWrangler, BBEdit and/or Alpha and not be posting things such as this!

I don’t know about you, but I love rainy days. I suppose I don’t like them when it is also too cold, but let’s not go there–let’s keep this positive!

Rainy days mean water for crops

Let me get this out of the way. I’ve grown up in the middle of corn and bean fields, with my father commonly laid off or on strike from factory work. Economics have always been on my mind, both macro and micro scale. Between the ages of 12 and 18, I used to obsess about the possibility of droughts and how they might affect the local economy and, alas, the nation’s economy. I probably took negative news too much to heart.

Bottom line: rain in the summer meant economic security–”one less thing” to worry about, as Forrest Gump would say. It also didn’t hurt my grass-mowing business, as an aside.

Rainy days make it okay to stay inside

My sister and I talked about this once. Here in the Midwest, where you get the whole gamut of weather, we grew up with this expectation around us that if it was nice outside, you had no business being inside. This was ingrained into our sense of right and wrong. It may have somehow been artificially branded onto our amygdalas, for all I know.

If I wanted to stay inside and program some nerdy game while it was a clear 75F outside, that was a problem. Rainy days meant you were free to stay inside, doing whatever you wanted–guilt-free. No good weather a-wasting.

Rainy days make sleep more delicious

Not that I know anything about this these days, but I remember waking up to the sound of rain and just deciding to stay in bed. Usually I’d raise the window a bit. That would get more of the nice white noise rain sound, plus that wonderful humid earthy scent wafting in the window. Often, the air would be a bit cool, so even though it might be late Spring, you could pull the covers up around you and it was just cozy. Especially if they were flannel sheets, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue.

Rainy days dig memories out of your brain closet

Rain permeates so many of my memories! I love memories. Memories are free, and noone can take them away from you or censor them. Good heavens, if you could censor my memories–half my brain would be redacted.

I think lots of religious people would love to give me a lobotomy, since recalling many of my memories might be considered “emotional adultery.” Sorry if you feel that way, folks. I love you anyway, but I think “emotional adultery” is a flawed concept.

Some rainy day memories:

You won’t understand most of these unless you’ve heard the stories or you were part of the memory. That’s okay, because this blog is mostly self-indulgent, anyway, right?

1. Valentine’s Day, night, SIU, Family Housing, freaked-out-but-very-kind Asian couple, stupid Kyle wouldn’t give us a ride, to hell with it–walk home.
2. Lewis Park, night, SIU, mad-at-you-mad-at-me, impromptu mud wrestling, laughter, why were we fighting again? We don’t remember.
3. Month of May, 4:30p EST, Washington, D.C. on the mall, every cab is taken, I’m shooed away from the Washington Monument as rain cover because of lightning risk, there are no buses, I’m so cold, where the hell did everyone go? Wow, a successful evacuation for sure. I have a bag of clean dry clothes, why won’t the Health and Human Services staff let me use the bathroom to change? Ironic bastards. Finally, my olde friend shows and we enjoy a fine evening of wine and food with new friends in Alexandria.
4. Wolf Creek campground. A very abrupt morning end to an otherwise-enjoyable friendly camping trip.
5. Wilborn Creek Beach, Lake Shelbyville, fishing in the parking lot from the top of the shower building and actually catching carp, talk about flooded Kaskaskia Valley!

I think 5 memories is enough, especially since my break just got over and I need to get back to work.

Thunderstorms are a whole different deal, but I’ll cover that–some other time!