I have written a fair amount of code in my time. When the iPad first came on the scene, one of the first apps I used was a text editor. I didn't use it for long. Years of physical keyboard use made using the on-screen keyboard a pain to type for more than five minutes. Most of all, I missed the lightning navigation of Emacs, Vi or even TextMate. But I haven't given up the search. Did Textastic give me hope in using the iPad for long stretches of code writing, or did it sink my expectations deeper into the abyss of no-can-do? Read on to find out.
So let me answer the big question first. Will Textastic on the iPad replace your favorite laptop-centric text editor? Not quite, although it has made great strides toward having that day happen sooner than later.