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 :)