Being Mr. Kenny

TextMate is a text editor for the Mac OS. Regular Mac users won’t generally find it useful, but if you are at all involved in writing computer code — HTML, PHP, javascript, whatever — you will instantly and completely fall in love with TextMate.

I’m not even using my trademark hyperbole here.

TextMate is just a beautiful program. It solves problems in the most beautiful, elegant, behind the scenes way. Using it makes my head feel all clean inside. It is uncluttered, precise, and neat beyond all expectation.

Watch one of the screencasts. I presume that this is the program’s author’s voice. (If it turns out not, I think my little heart shall break.)

Is this not the most beautiful, calming and reassuring voice you have ever heard? If I was on a flight, and this was the pilot’s voice, I would instantly lose all fear and apprehension. Possibly for the rest of my life. The plane could even plummet from the sky in flames and explosions, and if this man’s voice came through the speakers, I wouldn’t care at all.

Using the program has a similar feel to it. It just works. If you’re a fledgling web developer and only know how to use HTML and CSS, get this app, use it, and you will move into PHP almost naturally. I can hand-on-my-heart say that this is one of the best purchases I ever made.

Similar Mac apps that I have fallen in love with include CSSEdit and Transmit (an FTP client).

TextMate: it saved my life, sort of. (The only reason it didn’t was because my life didn’t need saving when I found it.)