Quote: Funny thing is, after a year or so, most of them have dropped that and have adopted gvim.

I did the same thing after about three years of BlueFish, Anjuta and Kate :-) The reason? Syntax highlighting. That's what it started with anyway. I use quite a lot of different languages and I like them all to be highlighted in nice colours. Most of the default colours in the normal editors were an eyesore, but reconfiguring them was a total pain. I'd have to change dozens of settings for each of two dozen languages.

Then I found out that gvim is much smarter. The language parser simply say "this is a tag", "this is a keyword", "this is a string", etcetera. The theme files simply map colors and styles to those keywords. That means that with a few changes I can create modify colour schemes across all eight dozen or so languages supported by vim (I'm now using wombat by the way).

That combined with the fact that I can run vim in an ssh shell, that I can use it without hardly using my mouse and the large amount of tools and plugins that work with (g)vim made me take it up. I've never looked back.

I do think that it's too much for new *nix programmers though. Wrapping your head around the *nix build systems and commandline work is a hard enough adjustment for Visual Studio refugees without also having to worry about vim commands and modal editors.

No .Net in Linux, blasphemy:)
No seriously, the Mono project is a free software library with the development supported by Microsoft. It's .Net except supports both Windows, Mac and Linux and has an IDE like the IDE Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named and the aforementioned KDevelop

No .Net in Linux, blasphemy:)
No seriously, the Mono project is a free software library with the development supported by Microsoft. It's .Net except supports both Windows, Mac and Linux and has an IDE like the IDE Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named and the aforementioned KDevelop called MonoDevelop(what else. The imagination these devs have:)), there's also Mono bindings for Tao if you want to do game programing and a GTK# form designer for applications

Hey! Thank you all for the warm welcome.

First, it would be foolish to try and quote everyone, and so with out specifically speaking to everyone hopefully with this statement I can answer some of the questions I've been asked.

1.) Thanks for the book I will read it this week. When I say I will read something if it's computer science related it will be read by Sunday night with as many examples as I can code. Thank you for the reference. I have bookmarked it!

2.) I will check out all of the websites, and I have looked at debian prior to posting the forum, however, I have chosen (giving my level of linux familiarity or the lack there of) the Ubuntu 8.04 distro with Compiz-Fusion.

I have installed monodev, codeblocks, and Eclipse for VB, C#, C++, Java, and PHP.

I'm trying to install Flex using Eclipse, however, all of my attempts have been unsuccessful, but hopefully I will work them out by this weekend, since my Flex Project is due Monday.

3.) Enalis I'll probably end up sending you a private message, for I have downloaded the KDevelop IDE, however, when I downloaded it I thought I would see one IDE, but I see KDE C++, Multi-language, Ruby, Designer, Scripter, and Assistance.

so here is my AIM MSN coden4fun / coden4fun@hotmail.com please IM soon as you can. I would like to start connecting to other open-source developers, and eventually start a project.

4.) Zeeli, you're right I've been so busy just personalizing my linux distro (about to make a live CD, so my friends can check it out, and learning the correct terminal syntax of extracting bz, bz2 tar files, and what not that I have been in a flow that I've been loving and ask why have I never tried this before?

5.) And to greenhybrid I have checked out vi and I have not downloaded it yet, for it's looks daunting, but in other words looks like something for me to do this weekend!

6.) To SMR, I don't limit myself to any one OS, or one language, for I am an independent programmer, and I just started as a .Net developer, but quickly realized that if I limit my languages, and operating systems I work in then I limit my work, and that's not cool. I've also tried seeing if I can develop iPhone apps on linux, but have been unsucessful with that search, so for now I'll just use an Apple to develop iPhone apps until it legally becomes released for linux users/window users, etc...

7.) To smcameron, is there a good tutorial on programming using Emacs, and VI? If so, and I find it more convenient then I will use it. Plus, I've already converted to the Dvorak keyboard layout, it's just so much simpler.

8.) To IAMLegend, I have found monodev, and they look like mimic what shall not be mentioned with the .Net languages like VB.Net, and C#, but I doubt it would be as powerful as Visual Studio Pro having the ability to easily create Visual Studio add ins, MS Office Add ins, .NetNuke modules, and ASP.Net websites.

I'm also interested in the Tao bindings for any game development, but I was just going to use SDL using Code Blocks, and try some Pygame using Python in Eclipse.

Anyways, as you can see I'm so excited that I've discovered such a great community with much support, and appreciate all the suggestions that have laid research for myself for the next couple of months.

I would like to give people my email IM account, so I can connect to other Linux users/coders, and possibly start a project soon. Oh, I use pidgin!

AIM: coden4fun
MSN: coden4fun@hotmail.com


Thanks again to all!!!! ;)