Notepad++

Not as powerfull as VIm, but it still worthed to be used. My second editor after VIm.

While enterprise developers usually prefer heavyweight IDEs like Eclipse, Visual Studio etc, Notepad++ is the editor of choice for the rest of us.

Syntax highlighting for nearly every language, all the handy editing features (like folding/unfolding, block comments, line operations, and even column-mode select), regexp search/replace, macros and XML/XSD special features (via plugin) all make Notepad++ outperform other similar editors.

The only two Notepad++ shortcomings for me is somewhat humble regexp syntax (not nearly as powerful as in Perl/Java/.NET) and slow performance on big files (like 50+Mb).

I don't know why so many people use this. I like TextPad much better. It's more polished, fast, bug-free, and just works. The only thing I wish TextPad had is outliner or folding editor functionality. Oh, and cross-platform too, that would be nice.

Plugins are absolutely abysmal, I can't find a working FTP plugin which is sad. NppFTP causes Notepad++ to crash every time, and FTP_synchronize can't download certain files.

Use this to replace Windows' Notepad with Notepad++: http://www.binaryfortress.com/NotepadReplacer/

Because of the unique management of projects, folders and links I prefer PSPad (1) to NotePad++
With this great system of projects, folders and links it is easier to find notes quicker and grouped in projects in comparison with NotePad++. Besides these better search- und link-features PSPad is very similar to NotePad++. For the daily very quick access (with its wake-up-area at the top of the screen) to standard texts as my phone number, OpenID-URL, account-numbers, fax-number, mail-adresses, signatures I like QuickNote.
For notes, which I want to use also with Windows Mobile device or on other computers I prefer Evernote with its unique web-synchronisation features.

(1) http://alternativeto.net/desktop/pspad/
(2) http://alternativeto.net/desktop/quicknote/
(3) http://alternativeto.net/desktop/evernote/

I used to like Notepad++, but after closing the app, it remained in memory. And after a while I noticed I had several instances of Notepad++ hogging the computer's memory.

I installed other versions, tried on other computers, and the same problem happened. At the time it was apparently a known issue. But I switched to PSPad, and am very happy with it.