What I absolutely could never lose is TextMate. I spend the bulk of my day using it; it just stays open all the time, like my mail client and browser. It is central to everything I do, and hands down my favorite piece of software. It’s paid for itself a hundred times over.

“Wait a second,” I hear you say. “This is just a text editor, right? Why are you so fired up about a text editor?”

See, but it’s not just a text editor. It bills itself as “the missing editor,” and they’re totally right; it’s everything I never knew I needed in a text editor, but now that I have it, I won’t give it up for love or money. I do not exaggerate when I say that like the iPad, TextMate was magical and revolutionary—it totally changed the face of that part of the software industry. It was so far ahead of its time, in fact, that no one since has made a text editor that measures up, let alone surpasses it, though many have tried. What’s really amazing about it, though, is that this software is over six years old. The last major update it got was in 2006. For six years, no one has come close to making something I’d consider switching to.^* Six years? That is simply unheard of in software.

“Ooookay,” you say, while subtly edging away. “So you like it a lot. Then why consider switching?”

Well, after that last major update (from 1.0.2 to 1.5, in January 2006), the author decided to do a complete rewrite of the application, and announced that he would release that rewrite as TextMate 2.0. But months, then years went by without any word of a new version, to a growing sense of unease among its loyal user base. People started wondering whether it was destined to become abandonware, whether they’d have to start looking for a new editing solution, since it was a matter of time before an OS update rendered it useless.

Every so often you’d see the odd forum post or hear from someone who knew someone that no, it was still in development, but not close enough to a releasable state to put a firm date on it. But that was hardly reassuring, and I had this growing dread in the pit of my stomach that I would eventually have to switch to some comparatively inferior product just because it was actively developed and kept up with the latest Mac OS X releases. So I searched for alternatives, tried out a few, but until the recent release of Chocolat, itself still in alpha, I didn’t see anything that was promising enough to consider seriously.

So imagine my cautious excitement at the announcement a few months ago that there would be a public alpha of TM 2.0 before the end of 2011. Cautious because I was wondering what they could possibly have added in that five years that would make the wait worthwhile. I figured it’d be more efficient and responsive, generally faster, but without a ton of new features, since the original product had been in my mind so good to begin with. I was fully prepared to think, “I waited six years for this?!”

But what do I know? Obviously I don’t have the foresight of TM’s authors, because it’s looking like TextMate 2.0 is going to be pretty awesome. This program is a Unix geek’s wet dream. Easy to use, but powerful and almost infinitely customizable. I can hardly wait until the official release, but until then, I think I’ll play a bit with the alpha.

And now the obligatory disclaimer: other than the ones about web development and design, the opinions on this, my personal site, are in no way reflective of my company or the people I work with.

I’ll leave you to read his conclusions yourselves. Though I don’t necessarily agree with all of them^*, I must mention that I do agree with his recommendation of PT Sans; I’ve recently become quite enamored of this humanist sans and will probably be using it in a future incarnation of this site’s template.

Maybe because there is no incumbent but an interim appointee, there is a huge array of serious, qualified candidates for San Francisco Mayor this year (no Chicken Johns this year, thank goodness), and the use of ranked choice voting has ensured that the candidates are (mostly) running on the issues. Fortunately or unfortunately, the candidates largely agree with one another on key issues, so narrowing the field was a bit of a challenge. My method was a combination of their personal statements, their answers to the Chronicle’s questions on current municipal issues, and their ability to speak and think quickly in a debate setting.

My top three choices were:

• David Chiu. He’s hands down the best one for the job. He’s smart, has a strong big-picture plan for the city, and has already proven he can get things done.
• Jeff Adachi. He seems to me a bit like Gavin Newsom in that the mayoral office is a stepping stone towards some larger ambition, but he has a detailed and comprehensive plan for improving the city, and years of experience in public office.
• Joanna Rees. I didn’t expect to like her—certainly think she is a bit too much of an outsider to be effective in office right away—but her no-nonsense answers to the debate/interview questions and common-sense plan for the city make her a good third choice.

As for the propositions:

• A – yes. School bonds are more or less the whole reason we do ballot initiatives. And who’s going to vote no on seismic improvements to old school buildings?
• B – yes. I hate to keep signing away money that has already been misspent, several times, for the same thing, but our roads suck, and they have to be repaved. Reluctant yes.
• C – yes. Weak sauce, but it’s a start, and it is a consensus plan.
• D – no. Goes further in the right direction, but was written entirely in isolation, and has some potential legal issues.
• E – hell yes. Give power back to the legislators at the expense of ballot initiatives? Oh, yeah.
• F – no. Seems like a good idea, but the rider that allows the ethics commission and the board of supervisors to change the ordinance without voter approval kills it for me.
• G – no. No ballot-box budgeting.
• H – no. Seems like a poorly-thought-out solution to a small part of a big problem.

Let’s hope good things result.

Not so the slew of new buildings going up in and around the future UCSF Mission Bay campus. That area contains some of the most interesting examples of modern architecture I’ve seen outside of magazines. The new Madrone residences have extensive rooftop gardens, and there are innovative uses of material everywhere. Even the parking garages look cool. I’d love to see the neighborhood when the work’s all finished, but that’ll take years yet.

If you live in SF and dig architecture, the next time you have a free hour or so, do yourself a favor and walk around down there. There are far worse ways to spend your time. Oh, and be sure to check out the Chihuly in the lobby of the Nektar/Bayer building. Nice.