nano is the best (imho) for up to medium size files. It’s preinstalled in most Linux boxes , it’s simple and flexible enough, takes a minimal amount of time to learn basic for keys and then use them all the time

Vscode. I am surprised to see a lot of people still use sublime text. I was a long hold out on that one but it's just so much worse than vscode in every way.

I've tried to learn Vim in the past but IMO it is not worth it at all. In a world without multiple cursors... sure, maybe. With multiple cursors? No way. I can can edit just as fast as I've seen any Vim user do it, and without having to remember a gazillion mnemonics and deal with the silly modal thing.

Multiple cursor editing even has some significant advantages over Vim style, e.g. it's interactive, so you can do your edit gradually and go back if you make a mistake. Rather than having to write a complex command and only finding out it if works at the end. (If you've used regex find & replace you'll understand that problem.)

I'll probably get downvoted for this since Vim is kind of a cult, and Vim users get a sense of superiority from it. Kind of like audiophiles - they don't appreciate it if you tell them their £10k valve amp doesn't actually sound any better than your £1k digital amp.

For editing on remote computers I use VSCode remote or Micro for quick tasks.

I mostly use Jetbrain's IDE's and NeoVIM when changing configs through the terminal.

Depends on what device I'm using. On my tower(s), I'm typically reaching for Rider, Pycharm, or Zed. On my laptop(s) it's pretty much always Helix or Zed. On servers it's vim 100% baby. I've gotten pretty comfortable working with theses tools, so I haven't really needed to look into alternatives at all.

I switched to helix last year after over twenty years of vim. I really like helix, but it did take some getting used to. Using multiple cursors instead of repeated commands etc

Panic Nova on macOS, VSCode on Windows, neovim in the Shell.

Perhaps you want a touchscreen.

I learned basics of vim, I can recommend. But also, it takes time to master. And I'd put other stuff first like fundamentals of git (stashes, staging area, branches and rebase.)

Also, don't underestimate using an IDE that's popular, I had switched over recently and found it convenient when a colleague asks for help. I can't tell them 'oh yeah I know how to do that on my setup' (though is valid..)

Like 3 years ago, I was into emacs, which I used with vi keybindings. Many extensions provided quality of life (tramp, magit, which-key) that others (vscode) only emulated and required hardware I lacked. Anyway...

If this is really about keys, go for gnu readline flavor instead of vi. I didn't, and those are way more ubiquitous. Anyway, research that and make your own decision.

Ps, here's a rabbit hole https://codeberg.org/ashton314/emacs-bedrock#emacs-bedrock

MicroEmacs http://www.jasspa.com/

No unicode support though. For that try

https://bionic.bloovis.com/cgit/microemacs/

.. but for work I still use Eclipse (sigh)

Dev of 25 years here: Cursor, for the LLM integration. It's based on VSCode, just way tighter AI integration. It's so good.

Zed, for the last few months, and happy with it (previously vscode) - I code in Scala, so Metals provides the complex hints / actions.

I use vim, or spacemacs with evil mode (emacs distribution with sensible shortcuts and vim emulation). Or VSCode with spacemacs emulation.

You will pass your current productivity in less than a month. All of the things you describe are easily done in VSCode with vim emulation (I prefer the full spacemacs emulation but it's not actually a huge difference). You won't have to move your hands away from the normal typing spot on your keyboard -- no home and end, just 0 and $. No control+arrow keys, just w and b (or e or even more motion options). Highlighting is as easy as v and then motion commands. And there are so many more useful things that vim (and vim emulation) make simple and fast. Orthogonal VSCode features like multi cursors still work.