So lately there's been a lot of hype around WriteRoom. Lately it's been around a NY Times article on WriteRoom and Scrivner. (Slashdot, NYT)

As much as it must shock the One Editor To Rule Them All crowd, I do think there are good reasons to write a text editor in 2007 (unlike Mark Pilgrim). Actually, he's part of the way right: there's no reason to write your own text control, but plenty of reason to write your own editor. This distinction is important, although it's very hair splitty.

The point is that text editors help you do something with your input, text controls help you input and navigate your characters. Text controls usually have a lot of keyboard shortcuts to help you navigate around faster. On the Mac OS, for example, there are a certain set of shortcuts that people have become used to and expect out of your text control.

We don't need any new text controls, at least I don't think. New text controls tend to be bad: like Mark Pilgrim said, non-trivial, maybe leaving something out (undo, good keyboard navigation, syntax coloring, int8l, good font support). There's probably a Really Good text control for your development API already (unless there's not... but it is 2007 2008 after all. There probably is one.)

Now creating a Word Processor or Text Editor: I can see that. You think there's a niche for a text editor that hooks into Unix Tools. Or maybe one with a revision control system built in. Or maybe one that helps writers deal with the bookwork that goes along with writing a story. I don't think there's a perfect editor for every purpose. But making your perfect editing environment doesn't mean you have to go out and write a new text control for it (unless you find it does). Example 1: Panic Software's Coda (which uses SubEthaEdit's text control).

So text editors are (at least for me) the Right Tool For The Job), not One Ring To Rule Them All. For example, I use Mailsmith to store and write my email. It has a Really Good Editor for this (BareBones integrated their text control from BBEdit into Mailsmith). I'm using MarsEdit to write this blog post. OmniOutliner to write articles. I use TextMate to edit code 90% of the time (the other 10% I use Xcode's editor). I use VIM when I have to get into remote servers and very often when I'm writing up journal entries. All different apps, for different uses. I wouldn't dream of writing email in TextMate (although I have sometimes created outlines with it), just as I couldn't see using anything but Scrivner to write fiction (Really: where would you put all your Background-Info-But-I-don't-know-where-to-put-it-yet thoughts?).

Maybe all this bouncing around is helped (some) by the common set of navigation keys I've come to expect text controls to support. I'm sure I'd like it less if switching from Mailsmith to MarsEdit required me to switch from VI style shortcuts to Emacs style (or, heaven forbid, pico)

Having said all that, and returning to what the NYT article was talking about: Word almost always feels like the wrong tool to me. Except maybe at the very end of the writing process where I'm pouring my text into (say) a format given to me by a magazine. Word is Just Too Complicated for most tasks... and where it might shine (say non-trivial writing tasks) I don't trust it anyway (give me a good text editor and LaTex, thank you).