The console editors list on *nix is dominated by three names - Vim, Emacs and Nano. Vim commonly appeals to sysadmins and users who prefer modal interfaces and quick editing. Emacs is the tool of choice of Lisp programmers and everyone who prefers a unified environment around text editing and development. Nano seems to be the current popular easy editor for those who just want to do quick edits.

I have long had a fondness for Joe, and editor from the late 1980s created by Joseph Allen. I think it strikes a good balance between being easy to use and still being reasonably powerful. It comes with Wordstar like keybindings but can also emulate other editors like Emacs and Pico.

I run a fairly simple Joe configuration, which is driven by the .joerc file. The easiest way to get a custom config is to copy the 'joerc' file from /etc/joe and save it as a dotfile in your $HOME. Writing single hypen options from the starting of a line enables the configuration. Leaving multiple spaces in the beginning marks the line as a comment and thus turns off the configuration option. I usually set the following options, which enable syntax highlighting, line numbers and mark each indentation as 4 spaces. All tabs are also emulated by 4 spaces.

-highlight
-istep 4
-tab 4
-indentc 32
-spaces
-autoindent
-linums