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What was your first code editor?

Suraj Vishwakarma on June 24, 2021

Introduction Today, we have known many code editors that offer more than a just code editor. They have many features and support for ext...
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Fabian Holzer

QBasic, which didn't really make a distinction between its editor/IDE and the interpreter.
And a for my first steps in web development it was Windows notepad, which I quickly replaced with an editor called phase 5.

Great. Now I feel really old.

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Atulit Anand

And I thought I was the only one who learned Q basic.

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Rishit Chaudhary

Don't forget QB64 which was quite cool too 😃

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Atulit Anand

I forgot to mention thought. I hated my Qbasic classes.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

QBasic sounds like very old ✨and Notepad is lit for first timers 🤩

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undefinedTea • Edited

There have been so many over the years...
I am a quite firm believer in continuously trying different things to see if something works better for you then the previous thing.

This means that I might focus on other aspects of a tool then most - for instance, I do not really care about the plugin ecosystem all that much, as I think a great tool has to be great out of the box, not only after days, weeks or months of fine tuning.

Don't get me wrong, I do adapt tools over time, but I try to keep this to a minimum. Anyhow, I digress, and every rule has an exception (more on that in a minute).

I got into computers in the 90s and my first editor was Notepad. I first wrote some scripts and later I developed my schools website using it. Yup, it used <blink> and also <marquee>. Yup, on the same element. Apologies for anyone who ever saw that site.

I guess the line above answers the question, so feel free to stop reading here. If you are interested in the journey since, and on my thoughts on tools in general, please read on \o/

A few years later I went into DreamWeaver because a friend had a license and I thought it looked so professional. That did not last long ^^
Eclipse was next, and i actually wrote my first ever production code there. When I joined the first consulting company I worked in, I used Coda and later Brackets, JetBrains and Sublime. All of these were also relatively short journeys, because a colleague introduced me to Vim.

You probably guessed already that Vim is the exception to my 'rule' above. The Vim setup I use today is nothing like the out-of-the-box Vim experience (here is a shameless plug if you want to have a look at my configuration). Perhaps this is also because I have stuck with it for the longest time.
Either way, despite still using this tried and true tool from time to time, these days I have more or less switched entirely to VSCode (probably with less than 5 plugins) and I love it.

This all is just a really long winded way of saying:
Use what works for you, and always at least test drive things that look interesting. At the same time, I do not change just for the sake of change anymore, and any tool I use today has to at least meet these criteria...

  1. Be local and available offline (I am not into browser based tools).
  2. Have great search/file navigation and key based navigation.
  3. Get out of my way.

I balance these and also my 'minimum customisation' rule in practise of course, since after all - a text editor is where i spend most of my time - so it has to be a place i enjoy and something that helps me be productive.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Thanks for adding key values to your experience with code editor and your methods🔥.

I like yours trying new things and keeping minimal as possible🤩.

Your experience will help many others✨

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Jon Randy 🎖️

BASIC on the 48K ZX Spectrum (back in 1983)
ZX Spectrum 48K
BASIC REPL/editor

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Look like very first code editors 🔥

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Aditya N Bhatt

i started my coding journey back in August 2018 in my uni. we used Gedit for a around 2 years, in 2020 November i shifted to vs code and it's very handy.

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Injamul Mohammad Mollah • Edited

I wonder how you managed to code in only gedit for 2 years.
I know gedit is customisable but it's not that handy.
I only use gedit to write docs.

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Aditya N Bhatt

don't ask 🥲 the struggle was real

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Injamul Mohammad Mollah

😅 I can relate.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

VS code is my number 1 preference rn🔥

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Aditya N Bhatt

indeed it's a very powerful ide

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Yesss🔥

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guledali • Edited

Sublime Text 2 I believe whatever that was popular around 2015-2016, then there was a short period of atom. I think I picked it up because of Travis Neilson of devtips, finally I settled with VSCode

Occasionally I would pick up rubymine for ruby development but even then I have gone back to using vscode for ruby.

Oh I forgot there was period of me trying to get in VIM, and I was using macvim + janus in order to look cool that didn't last very long, now I just use the vim extension for VSCode.

VSCode is the best, light text editor yet powerful as IDE

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Great to start❤️

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~👨🏻‍💻🇳🇮

I started at college 10 years ago and remember like it was yesterday, I was so excited to start coding and there it was, I saw the first time the death blue screen on the console for..C!!!

That was my first language and we worked on the cmd, after 2 months teachers let us move to an editor, we used notepad but the big ones took Notepad++. Great days!

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Pandita

notepad :3

back then sites didn't need too much fancy stuff and everyone could easily make a site... nowadays? not so sure hahaha

after notepad, in no specific order, I used turbo pascal, dev c++, python's normal thingy, eclipse, netbeans, sublime, visual studio and vscode.

I currently use sublime, vscode and visual studio(my main workstation).

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Back when code editors were word editors✨

And nice current editors🔥

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The Interview Sage

My first code editor was Notepad too 🙂

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Nikola Stojaković • Edited

DevCPP. I had some quite old book on C++ and author used it so I thought it would be a good choice. Later I found out there is much more sane Visual C++ 2010 Express.

My first code editor after that was Sublime Text. I spent much time on it after finally moving to VS Code (I changed few editors in the meantime but didn't use them for long). Nowadays I mostly use WebStorm and VS Code.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

I had used DEVCPP for compiling and running my c program in my early program learning

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brandon_wallace • Edited

When I started using computers, I started with notepad because it was installed on the computer and I did not know any better. After reading a great deal of the editors available, I started using Vim. 10+ years later I still use Vim.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

We all have started with the plain Notepad

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Ramiro Alvarez

Sublime Text 3

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Great choice to start your journey 🤩

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alvarosc2

My first editor was edit.com which cam with Microsoft DOS 6.2. it worked with QBasic which came in the same package and the first language where I did programming.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Great man 🔥

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𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

Musta been lazarus, back when I was learning programming with pascal :D

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Never head of it but sounds good 🤩

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Wesley Branton

I started out with web development using Programmer's Notepad, which in retrospect isn't really much of a step up from using Notepad. It's still a pretty solid editor, although it's pretty basic. I actually still use it from time to time when I need to quickly view some code.

Currently, I use Visual Studio Code for most web-related stuff. For Java (which I also now heavily work in), I prefer JetBrains.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Me too for the quick view, I open some code in notepad

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Daniil

First language was Pascal in school, but i wasnt interested in it. Later in school i got a project to do kinda history museum site for it. I got into HTML/CSS + JS, so i think JavaSript was my first programming language i was really interested in.

When i just started i was using Notepad++ but then found VS Code and still love it.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

VS Code is awesome🔥

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Alex Winter

The first line of code I ever wrote was in AppleScript.
The first text editor (or in this case, a WYSIWYG editor) was Adobe Pagemill.
Then I moved on to BBEdit.
Then Macromedia (later Adobe) Dreamweaver.
Then Notepad++.
Then Panic's Coda.
Then Sublime Text.
Now Visual Studio Code.

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Sunny Golovine

The first was Eclipse. That was back in College when we were all learning Java. From there I moved to Netbeans and then to IntelliJ. After college I've been doing JS work so I've lived in VSCode for a few years now.

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Charity Gamble

Mine was Notepad on a Windows machine. Then I found CoffeeCup HTML editor, which I eventually replaced with Notepad++. Then I got a Mac and switched to Sublime and now I'm on VS Code. I don't think I'll ever switch from VS Code. LOL

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K

The first editor was probably some BASIC related thing on the C64, where I wrote my first hello world.

The first coding I did in the mIRC internal editor, for some scripts I copy and pasted together from the internet.

In my first programming job I used notepad++.

Then it went Eclipse -> WebStorm -> VSCode.

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Jonathan Apodaca

Notepad. I was learning HTML/JavaScript, and later Java, programming in notepad, compiling from the Windows command prompt. My Dad (who was facilitating my learning) did not tell me about IDEs for a while. It was one day when he was working from home on a Java project that I first learned about Eclipse. I was like, "can we download that on my computer, please?"

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Lucas Ramos Paiva

Back to the 90's/00's I used to use Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe PageMill to create personal home pages just for fun (with a lot of skull gifs ant things like that). And about first programming language, I remeber making changes in a mIRC script (just for fun also), so mSL was my first programming language.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Ringing the old memories when you first time hit run ✨

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KUMAR HARSH

My first and last one is VS Code .

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Great to start and great going 🤩

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max

notepad.exe :D

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Notepad has been saviour for first timers🤩

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max

Haha it was awful without syntaxic coloration :p

I quickly went to notepad++, and... dreamweaver if i reacall correctly ? ^^

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Me too I switched to Notepad++ and then VS code

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Raí B. Toffoletto

(In order my mind can remember)
Notepad for Windows 98.
MACROMEDIA Dreamwaver.
GEdit or Kate. (distro hopping years)
Brackets. (c.2015)
VIM (yeap, late to the 🥳)
Currently VSCode (on any OS).

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Raí B. Toffoletto • Edited

BTW, first website I made using. notepad was by following a MAGAZINE tutorial. Those were mad of paper back in the day 🤣... that was around --frame-- time.... just before --table-- layouts were a norm and CSS 1.0 was out.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

You were really into learning new stuff

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Your editors define programming through ages

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Lot to do by own and now everything is automated with editors🤩

What's your current editor?

 
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Suraj Vishwakarma

Great set of editor for different purposes

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GrahamTheDev

Notepad.exe followed closely by dreamweaver !

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Suraj Vishwakarma

We started with the same🤩 and I would try Dreamweaver for surel🔥

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Darsh

Bluej

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Nice one that's mean your first language was JAVA

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Darsh

Yes

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𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

written in Lua

Nice!

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Full Name

If we count 90s html, then notepad was first. The first programming language and ide I actually count was Visual Basic. Tons of fun.

These days I use neovim.

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Andrea Casini

Uuu.. this question takes me back ages ago:

Kate

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Suraj Vishwakarma

And I am glad that your remember this even today

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Shinigami

In this order:

  • notepad.exe
  • Visual Studio 2008, 2010, 2015
  • NetBeans (❤️)
  • eclipse (🤮)
  • nano
  • Sublime Text 2
  • VSCode (❤️❤️❤️)
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Suraj Vishwakarma

More love to VS Code❤️

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Robert Myers

Ditto on the Vic-20 here. First compiled that I remember was either the Merlin assembler or Turbo Pascal on the Apple II in school, not sure which came first.

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Ivan Jeremic

Dreamweaver + Frontpage

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Great editors🤩

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ayushbisht2001

Turbo C++

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Old and classy 😉

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Keff

nano xD

My first projects were bash scripts, though nano could not be considered an IDE. So to answer correctly, my first IDE was good old Eclipse 😅 Now I use VSCode mostly

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Eclipse is good editor and we have same current editor 🤩

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Ahmad

Started off from pycharm, then immediately after Vs Code and since then been using it, and couple it with vim, you have one of the best IDEs out there

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Suraj Vishwakarma

I am very impressed with vim🤩 and gonna try it✨

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Chittoji Murali Sree Krishna

My first code editor is notepad, then later shifted to vscode and vim, finally neovim, I like neovim a lot

So I started using it as my daily driver

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Notepad is first code editors for many developers🔥

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Nice choice 🔥 and I haven't tested lite. So looking forward to using it🤩

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ferceg • Edited

C=+4 BASIC "editor" ~1988 :)
on PC: Turbo Pascal 5.5, it had great features at that time (~1990)
progopedia.com/version/turbo-pasca...

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Conor Sheehan

IDLE Python’s Integrated Development and Learning Environment.

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Xavier Siraudin

I started coding Java during school on the Windows notepad.
Switched to Notepad++ when I started working.
Using JetBrains IDEs now.

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Alec

My first code editor was MultiEdit. It was Windows only and is now defunct... but back in the day it was incredible.

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Lucas Perez

My first code was written using nano (:

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rjsworking

ZX Spectrum, edlin, kedit (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XEDIT#KEDIT), gwbasic, qbasic, turbo basic/pascal... Vscode

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Great set of editor that you have used🔥

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Zaw Htut Win

Windows Notepad to write small java programs.

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Jack

Notepad++ 🎉
Eventually I discovered atom and then after a lot of resistance for no reason, I moved to vscode and never looked back...

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Yep, VS code is awesome 🔥

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Nico Zerpa (he/him)

My first code editor as good ol' Notepad. I did some basic HTML stuff

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Suraj Vishwakarma

I make a quiz game using notepad 🔥 I remember as my first project

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john

Sublime text!

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Pretty good to start🔥

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samhk222

hot dog html editor

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Great Name for editor🤣

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Victor Edier

SciTE

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Nice one

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Brian M.

Macromedia Flash (before Adobe bought them). You could edit actionscript with it. I played a part in the web's "skip intro" days. Actionscript was a legit strongly typed language though - eventually.

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Przemyslaw Michalak

Very first one was Notepad++ then Visual Code, but neither of them was enough so I made my own :D glue.codes

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Suraj Vishwakarma

That's amazing, goona try your editor ❤️

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Virej Dasani

Notepad, looking back, I've come a long way :)

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Yess, Notepad has been Kickstarter for many developers

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cswalker21

BASIC console on my TI-99 in about 1981. Forty years later, I’m still a novice level programmer. Oh, well.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Eveyone is newbie in this field 🤣

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Aaron Reese • Edited

Text editor on TRS80.

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Jim Carr

Notepad++

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Siddharth

VSCode > Sublime Text > Atom > VSCode > Vim > VSCode > Vim > Macvim

Whew.

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boriskeny

NOTEPAD++

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Kritebh Lagan Bibhakar

Notepad++

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Great to o start

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Amir Mamad

It was notepad++.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

After notepad, I used notepad++

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Yuvraj.M

Notepad was my editor for an year in middle school where I learnt HTML :)

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Suraj Vishwakarma

In my college, I also uses Notepad a lot

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Patrik

The first one I ever used was this thing :D quincy.codecutter.org/

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Nice to Kickstart🤩

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Mirko Vukušić • Edited

ZX Spectrum Basic on rubber keyboard and black&white TV :)))

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Old is gold and I am glad you remembered it❤️

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Pontakorn Paesaeng

Notepad++ but with minecraft plugin configuration instead.

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Nguyen Huy Cuong

Notepad++

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Suraj Vishwakarma

Nice one👍

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StevenMcGown

Freshman year of college we used a software called "Dr. Java"

Not sure if that counts but it was definitely my first :)