Emmet is a handy short-hand script for writing HTML. Here's a cheat sheet for it.
We've been trying Jade at work, which does a similar thing. Jade needs to be "compiled" down to HTML either through using a javascript plug-in (eww!) or a build process like Brunch or Yeoman. While build servers are handy, sometimes you just want to pound out some plain HTML.
My favorite text editor at the moment is Sublime 2. It has a really handy package management tool that you can use to install the Emmet plug-in.