After learning the command line, mastering your text editor is one of the most important – yet overlooked – skills involved in programming.
Most of the courses below (except the Learn Enough to Be Dangerous one) focus on a specific text editor. We’ve included courses for what are currently some of the most popular cross platform text editors: Atom, Sublime Text and Visual Studio Code (usually known as VSCode).
However, a lot of what you learn in one modern text editor will be relevant to other text editors, either directly as they share many common features, or with a bit of tweaking.
Learn Enough Text Editor to Be Dangerous
This online course is intended as an introduction to the category of text editors, rather than being specific to any one text editor.
The first two parts of this course are free. The first part gives a basic introduction to Vim – a somewhat intimidating text editor accessed through the command line – and does an excellent job of demystifying it.
The second part goes through the basics of using a modern text editor. It uses the Atom text editor in its instructions, but the tutorial is designed to be relevant to other popular text editors.
The third part requires purchases and goes into more advanced text editor practices and tips.
Atom Power User – Zac Gordon
This free online course goes through the default features of Atom editor as well as tips, tricks and recommendations for plugins.
Sublime Text Power User – Wes Bos
If you use Sublime Text, then this course will turn you into a power user. It goes over everything you need to master Sublime Text including customising your editor to mastering the command palette to creating advanced workflows that fit your exact development needs.
Sublime Tutor
Sublime Tutor takes quite a different approach from your standard course. Rather than being accessed online, it is installed and accessed in Sublime Text itself.
It is led by the principle that the best way to learn is by doing. Sublime Tutor takes you from the most basic commands to very advanced ones, all within the text editor itself. It uses spaced repetition to help you remember shortcuts that you’ll want to use frequently.
Sublime Python – Real Python
This course is specifically for Python developers who want to use Sublime Text better. The aim is for you to learn how to set up an optimised space for you to program in Python in about an hour.
VSCode Basics – Scotch.io
This 21 Lesson, just under 3 hour course goes through the basics of setting up and customising VSCode.
A Visual Studio Code Tutorial
A free online tutorial that goes through VSCode’s main features in an approachable way.
VSCode Power User
This course is created by an ex-Sublime Text user who has converted to the open-source VSCode. It teaches how to set up an advanced development environment and power user workflows for a wide range of programming languages.
Learn VS Code
This course is currently in development with the aim to show you how to create a minimal and productive programming environment in VSCode. In the meantime, you can sign up to find out when it’s released and receive useful tips on how to optimise VSCode.
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