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General Discussion

Donald Cox
Donald Cox
2,088 Points
Posted by Donald Cox
Donald Cox
2,088 Points

Best language to learn for a text/code editor?

I have dipped in and out of programming for about a year now, usually making simple things that I see and want to re-create. Recently I've been wanting to develop a text editor. I've made a few before, one it C# and one in .NET, both being the most basic they could possibly be. Aside from the basic things you'd see in an editor, such as text editing (duh), saving/opening, cut/copy/paste, etc.. I would also want the following:

  • Tabs
  • Syntax Highlighting (I only plan on having it for 1 language, something custom)

I've managed to implement Syntax Highlighting in a vb.net text editor, but it's not the most optimized. Every time the text box is updated, it scans the entire box and highlights. After a few hundred lines, I'm almost positive this will cause the program to run really slow.

So basically what I want to know, is what language would be the best to learn to accomplish what I'm looking for? I realize this won't be a process that will happen flawlessly over the course of a month or two, and I plan and spending close to a year just on the basics of it. But I don't want to start a language only to find out I've been learning the wrong thing. If anyone could suggest a good language to start learning, I would greatly appreciate it! I've been thinking of C#, but I honestly don't know what would be the best way to go. I've seen some made in python, Java, and Javascript. Anyways, thanks for reading. Any suggestions would be appreciated! :)