My favourite editor for almost everything text related: jEdit.

It's written in Java but nevertheless fast (enough) and I can use it on all platforms I have to work with: Mac OS X, Solaris, WinDOS

It has Perl syntax highlighting and can easily be enhanced with plugins and macros.

What I like most about it is

• the ability to search and replace with regular expressins
• search across files and subdirectories
• selection of rectangular blocks
• selection of multiple sections