If you are looking for a text editor with features, such as tabs, syntax coloring, text replacement using regular expressions etc. but are reluctant to install e.g. 
Emacs  look no further. For Windows, 
Notepad++ is the best choice that I can think of (and it is free!). For Mac OS X, I have been searching google for a Notepad++  look-alike. Finally, I found a nice TextEdit replacement - 
Smultron (also available free of charge :)
For programming, I always use the built-in editor provided by 
Xcode which works very well (after a few shortcut modifications :)