Ask HN: What is a good scriptable text editor

Vim and Emacs have neither of these things. They both pose a long and difficult barrier to entry.

However it sounds like you aren't looking for simple and quick. If you are running into limitations on your current editor, then it's time to swallow the pill and dive into one of the behemoths.

I don't know of any text editor that is guaranteed to have less limitations than Sublime Text, but also has a "simple and quick scripting capability".

I would recommend Vim as it's main focus is as a text editor. Emacs tries to do everything, Vim just tries to edit text. Emacs also has a mode that enables Vim key bindings, so if you choose Emacs later, you won't have to start from scratch.

Lastly, Emacs uses a dialect of Lisp for customization. Vim has it's own made up language. So this may be a reason to choose Emacs over Vim.

On the Emacs versus Vim, Emacs is fatter with features by design. Vim is designed to be lighter weight so it can ship on memory constrained systems by default. The Emacs community tends to have a more substantial interest in scripting and customization and one of its features is built in tooling for writing scripts, e.g. the eLisp REPL.

Good luck.

I'm currently developing a native editor in JavaScript (using chromium) where it's very easy to write a "plug-in" in JavaScript.