A big blank white page here and Matthew Levine reminded me to finish a post I had started a month ago about quality software. Matthew was kind enough to offer me some additional help after I was stumped with a problem while I was trying to implement a web site using his technique recently published as In Search of the Holy Grail on ALA (yes, he has caught enough flak for the phrase already and no, he didn't coin it anyway). If you have interest in CSS layout and design, his article is well worth your time, go check it out.

He posts about Switching to TextMate. Making the switch seems to be the all the rage these days. Here's my take as to why:

Sometimes there is a piece of software so good that I'm immediately blown away and want to buy it on the spot. It looks great, it does cool things, and it fills a niche I need. This kind of software usually gets forgotten by me after the wow-factor and I don't use it as much later.

Other times I find software that is nice. It's okay. I try it out and think "neat". Most of the time that software just finds it's way into my bloated Applications directory and gets trashed many months later. However, sometimes a piece of software starts to grow on me and I get more impressed the more I use it. BBEdit was one of those.

Lately, on urging from several people, I have started using TextMate. (which, btw, supports SCR now) TextMate was deceptively simple at first glance. Maybe it was just me, but I didn't see much to get me excited about it. But after having used it for a few weeks, I'm amazed. Every time I think "I wish it could do x feature", I find that it already does! TextMate is way ahead of me and already knows my meager needs and is ready for me to graduate to bigger and better needs too! We definitely don't lack for great choices in text editors for the platform.

Software that is quietly and elegantly meeting the needs, even those unanticipated, is what quality in software engineering is all about.

Matthew pointed out some new "can't live without" features of TextMate and some "miss em" things from TextWrangler. I'm right with him on most of those. By far my most missed feature is that Block Undo magic. Incredible how useful that is and how much I miss it now.

Finally, speaking of quality software, IE6 is not. Well, when it comes to CSS support anyway. I am really sick of trying to make this new project (an Unsanity project that hopefully will be seen in the not too distant future) work in IE. Sometimes tables are very very tempting. Float this!!!! Also, I tried IE7 just for fun... and I'm not impressed. Couple million in budget can't do better? Apparently Rentzsch and others agree. I'd happily settle for a complete lack of innovation in exchange for Firefox/Safari/etc level standards support. Not that that would help any of us for the next several years... ah, legacy support.