From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-02-24T06:54:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Textmate on Windoze!

On Sat, Feb 24, 2007 at 06:45:04AM +0900, David Vallner wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
> > Considering that, like E-TextEditor, a Linux/BSD version would probably
> > not be an actual port of TextMate.
> 
> Actually, that's how I did in fact read Jonas Hartmann's wishful thinking.
> 
> E-TextEditor is not a port, but it's not even a Windows "version" of
> TextMate for any possible interpretation of the word. It's a completely
> distinct product that just happens to have support of TextMate bundles
> (whatevertheheck those are) as one of its features (which strikes me as
> an odd, but apparently effective marketing move), and maybe shares some
> design aims. This product is not relevant to this discussion.

This product is what *started* this discussion.  That seems relevant to
me.  The slogan for E-TextEditor is also suspicious, as an indicator
that it's a close approximation of TextMate:

  E - TextEditor | The power of TextMate on Windows

Yeah, sounds relevant to me.


> 
> > I doubt the fact that TextMate is a
> > commercial app would be particularly limiting in determining what
> > libraries would be used for such a unixy clone of the software.
> 
> Actually, since the benefit a commercial software company would want to
> gain from such a massive body of work would be getting more customers /
> sales, a set of dependencies that's more portable and less likely to
> alienate users (because of the desktop wars) would indeed make sense.
> But that's already going into the realm of setting up pretty straw men.

Since there's already something TextMate-ish on Windows, and TextMate
itself is on MacOS X, all that's left is Linux and BSD for the three
most popular platform niches for text editors.  Since the people on this
list are probably more interested in the functionality of TextMate than
they are in the commercial success of the proprietary code of TextMate,
it seems to me we should be talking about if/when similar software will
be available rather than if/when TextMate itself will be more
cross-platform compatible.

Why would I care, one way or the other, whether the creator of TextMate
provides a clone or port for free unices?  All I'd really care about is
whether such a thing becomes readily available.  I'll stick to
discussing how someone might replicate the functionality and beneficial
interface characteristics on my platform of choice, rather than whether
or not person X will make any money off it.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"A script is what you give the actors.  A program
is what you give the audience." - Larry Wall