also, my favorite in a windows environment, NoteTab (www.notetab.com), avail as free, light ($9.95) and pro ($19.95). Believe all accept "clip libs" -- helper packages that provide quick reference; template many common snippets, etc. However, do not yet know of one that color-codes elements of your code, which many (most?) of the others cited above do.

If *n*x is your environment, vi, vim, emacs all have their adherents... and plusses and minuses which are, in some large measure, dependant on your tastes. If Linux, you can also look at Kate, Kwrite, etc, etc, etc. Picking one you really like will be harder than finding many that are OK. And as the way the perlfaq (linked above by BDF) is written will tell you, a good IDE may (YMMV) beat the tar out of "just an editor."

good hunting.