I report a problem to a colleague. After trying and failing to use the “works on my machine” excuse, he comes over to see for himself. He asks to drive so he can do a little debugging on my editor, so I step aside to let him use the keyboard. He squints at the code and seems unable to type. Several times he presses an elaborate key combination, only to curse and have to undo whatever he did. Usually, when he tries to undo, he again curses before finally looking at the keyboard to press Ctrl+Z with the concentration of an octogenarian trying to double-click the AOL icon fast enough.

Why is he having so much trouble using my editor? Because I’m using SlickEdit. What does he use? SlickEdit.This scenario happens a lot to me, really anytime a coworker tries to use my machine. Even after he gets used to the color scheme and whatever tool windows I use, if he doesn’t happen to use the same emulation that I use, he’s hosed. He spends more time trying to get somewhere in the code than he does actually making any changes. And no doubt he’s got some custom keybindings on his machine that he uses all the time, but my editor seems to think they have completely different functions.

So the good thing about SlickEdit is that it’s incredibly customizable. You can set it up to do whatever you want, however you want. You can go over, under, around, and through your code using commands and keybindings that you define, and after using them for a couple of days, you’ll feel like you were born using Ctrl+W to comment a line of code. You’ll do all this without thinking about it, because you’re thinking about the code instead of the use of the editor.

Ah, but then you have to use someone else’s configuration. It’s worse if they’re looking over your shoulder, giving you keyboard performance anxiety. You’re all thumbs, two left hands, a DVORAK user in a QWERTY world. Your customizations are your crutches, and you have to limp along to solve a stupid problem when you know it works perfectly on your machine.

In fact, you work perfectly on your machine, too.