I think you are looking for an editor which feels modern but has the power of emacs,vim or textmate. If you are on Windows, you can try http://www.e-texteditor.com/. If on OSX, http://macromates.com/ Even i used to go round this question. I tried emacs, then vim , then textmate, then e-texteditor. Finally i felt Vim to be comfortable for me. You need to try all of those before settling on one.