I find it depressing that some people in the comments here wouldn't want to pay for a _key tool of their trade_ - assuming they work with texts professionally as programmers, bloggers, designers etc. Even 10% increase in productivity will pay for Textmate license in 10 days, assuming you get at least a minimum wage.
I think the problem most here have with this (and I have the same issue myself, though for me it is hypothetical since I'm not a TextMate user) is that the way Marco worded his article he is suggesting that the TextMate creator should go back on his word and charge all users for TM2.
Randomly changing terms like that is BS regardless of whether a big corp or a small company is doing it. A lot of people who use TextMate as much as Marco does may be willing to throw in some more money for TM2, but going back on your word is never a good thing, so Allan should provide TM2 for free as promised and then have a separate Donate button or some other clever way to allow satisfied customers to pay for TM2.
I don't think it's depressing. I can use emacs (others would give different examples) for free and I can use it in my daily work quite efficiently. So given that reality, I have a hard time paying for an editor, even if it is a key tool of my trade.
What I was trying to say is that every tool should be evaluated using 'productivity gain vs cost' framework. It may well be that for some people productivity gains of TextMate vs emacs/vim/other editor are small and therefore paying any price for TextMate is unreasonable, since the alternatives are free.
But in a case where TextMate does yield to substantial productivity gain, "$60 is too much" is a wrong mental model.
For java development? I don't have a recommendation really. I've tried Intelli-j and I think it is def. better but at least for my workflow at the paying job, eclipse's notion of project works out much better.
Few people are saying that $60 is too much.
Many people are saying, I paid $60 w/ the promise of an upgrade to X. I expect that commitment to be honored.
I find it depressing that if I pay for something with the promise of free upgrade and it wasn't. There are people like you who will jump out from the wood to defend it. Don't make any promise if you can't keep.
