> as long as you're only going to be coding on Windows.

In the past, I've used VS for editing PHP, which I then deployed to the server using a keyboard shortcut.

I understand what you're saying, but I want to point out that VS can be used as an editor even when the target platform isn't MS.

Yes I'm sure it can.

What I'm curious about, is it so good an editor that people commonly use it for general text editing for non-code text? I know Vim and Emacs gets used like that a lot, maybe Notepad too.

As I said to another commenter, yes, as long as I have a VS instance running, it's my text editor of choice.

The startup time is too long for off-hand editing (I suppose this is hardware dependent). In that case, I'll open Notepad for quick to-do lists, or vi for non-line-ending-mangling tasks. It's pretty unusual for me not to have VS running, though.

But can you use it as an editor when the target platform is humans, that is, when you're not writing code at all?

Sure, why not?

I wouldn't start up a VS instance just to edit text, but if I have one running, it's my editor of choice.