Pe (text editor)
| Company type | Open source software |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Founder | Maarten Hekkelman |
| Products | Text editor |
Pe, an abbreviation for Programmer's Editor, is an open source text editor tailored for the Be Operating System, Haiku, and other platforms resembling BeOS. Its primary focus is on source-code editing. The design of Pe takes cues from Mac OS editors such as Macintosh Programmer's Workshop and BBEdit.
As a straightforward source-level HTML editor, Pe provides features like HTML auto-completion, automatic refresh of linked files, and seamless FTP connectivity.
Created by Dutch developer Maarten Hekkelman—who is also recognized for BDB, a source-level debugger for BeOS, and the spreadsheet application Sum-It!—Pe originally launched as a commercial software priced at $50 on BeDepot. Following its transition to open source, it became part of Haiku’s initial alpha release in 2009. Hekkelman also adapted Pe for Macintosh under the name Pepper, though its development ceased in 2002.
Pe gained prominence through its use in producing the BeOS Bible and Neal Stephenson’s In the Beginning... Was the Command Line, both of which cite the editor.