I'm already using libssh2 for sftp, but sending terminal commands and displaying its output is a whole different beast - that's why there are dedicated, not-so-cheap apps for this :)

For programming languages like C++, Objective-C or Java it displays a list of class and function names that you can tap to jump to it.

The new version 4.0 with code completion for HTML and CSS should be available any day now.

Thanks for your input! To support this properly I think this would require full terminal emulation (like vt100). Otherwise you won't see the output of the commands you enter. Not trivial :) - You can currently use apps like iSSH or Prompt to do that. Although of course this requires switching to another app.

Currently that's not possible. Only the buit-in monospaced fonts are available.

Textastic uses functionality in iOS and some additional heuristics to detect the encoding of text files you try to open.

Which character encoding do you use in your files? 

I generally recommend using standard Unicode encodings like UTF-8, UTF-16 or UTF-32. These should be detected correctly and also display Chinese characters correctly. 

If you use other encodings that can't be detected automatically, you'll have to select the encoding manually by tapping-and-holding a file and choosing "Open with Encoding" the first time you open the file. The second time, the app will remember the chosen encoding.

Textastic already has support for C#. You can try to use the ASP (VB.net) syntax definition for VB.

Textastic 4.0 adds Firebug Lite integration.

Textastic 4.0 will support multiline tabbing and untabbing using the virtual keyboard and external keyboards (select text and press tab and shift-tab).