Programmers' editors such as SlickEdit's Visual SlickEdit 10 have become much more than manual tools for working with source code text. The March Version 10 update of Visual SlickEdit, a long-standing eWEEK Labs Analyst's Choice, provides impressive real-time analysis and display of program structure. Improvements include expanded tools for code refactoring as well as edit-time flagging of Java syntax errors.

Many tasks will benefit from Visual SlickEdit 10's capacity to edit files up to 2GB in size and to run not only on Windows but also on several Unix variants, including Mac OS X (with X11 support installed). Combined with fully integrated FTP facilities, this versatility rewards the investment of tailoring the editor to personal tastes.

Speaking of investment, though, the Windows-only named-user version of Visual SlickEdit 10 is no casual purchase at $284; the multiplatform package rings in at $799. Even so, that's not much in terms of developer hours, which is the proper perspective.

More information is available at www.slickedit.com.

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.