LinLog

I have a question for all the programmers out there: do people really write code in Windows Notepad? And if so, who and how many are they? I want to know so I can try to steer clear of them.

I see this every now and then in forums, tutorials, and so forth. It usually comes as instructions to open a particular file in Notepad, or open Notepad, type in this text, and save it as such and such. In some cases, it is followed by the revelation that you can download some kind of specialized editor for the file type at hand.

The worst part is that I've seen this from people who I know are not beginners. For example, one person I spoke with, who has been programming for over 20 years, said that when writing ASP applications, she uses Visual Studio .NET or Notepad. Apparently there's no in between there. It's either the heaviest of the heavy-weight IDEs, or the least code-friendly text editor in the world.

Why do people write code in Notepad? Why? It's the text-editor equivalent of writing code on punch-cards. Maybe it's just me, but every time I double-click a programming-related file in Windows and it opens in Notepad, I curse under my breath, close Notepad, and right-click the file to open it in Vim or jEdit. I mean, unless you're on somebody else's system and Notepad is the only thing available, I just can't contemplate using it for any actual work.

Can anyone enlighten me on this? Is it just ignorance? Do some people actually like Notepad? What's the deal?