Introduction to IDE

IDE is the Integrated Development Environment that provides the user interface for code development, testing and debugging features. It helps to organize the project artifacts that are relevant to the source code of the software application. It provides several tools and features to make the development easy and standardize based upon the programming language the developer writes the code. The IDEs also have the functionalities to compile and interpret the program. Some of the widely used IDs are Eclipse for Java programming development, Microsoft Visual Studio, Android Studio for Mobile Apps development, RStudio for R programs and PyCharm for Python programming.

What is IDE?

It is a software application that defines the visual representation of the location of the files easily and makes it more understandable for the user. It contains development tools such as text editors, code libraries, compilers, and test platforms and consists of at least build automation tools, and a debugger.

Net Beans and Eclipse are good examples of IDE, which contains a compiler, interpreter, or both; other IDE’s such as Sharp Develop and Lazarus do not include these tools. IDE’s have the capability of using the functionality of multiple programming processes in a single process. Some IDE’s will work on a specific programming language, and also they contain cross-language capabilities. IDE’s such as Eclipse, ActiveState Komodo, IntelliJ IDEA, My Eclipse, Oracle JDeveloper, Net Beans, Codenvy and Microsoft Visual Studio supports multiple languages.

In today’s market, you can see a variety of IDE’s, which turns code into functioning applications and programs.

Following are the best IDE software’s use for the development of an application:

Microsoft Visual Studio
Net Beans: It is an open source IDE written in Java
PyCharm
IntelliJ IDEA
Eclipse: It is a free IDE, which is used for Java developers and programmers
Code: Blocks
Android Studio
Komodo
RubyMine
Xcode
Enide Studio 2014
jEdit
jGRASP
BlueJ
Coda
Aptana
Blackadder
Geany
MonoDevelop
Espresso

Understanding IDE

You can easily understand the working of IDE. And moreover, it is simple than a text editor. The text editors such as Sublime or Atom provides many features like highlighting the syntax, customizable interfaces, and extensive navigation tools, which allow only to write the code. You can make applications more functionality; you need at least a compiler and a debugger. An IDE contains all of these features, components and many more.

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Development teams use an Integrated Development Environment to develop new software, application, web pages, and services, by providing one tool along with all the features and removing the need for integrations. IDE’s are very helpful for developers to write fast and error-free code.

There are three main categories, where IDE makes more understandable for the user:

Increased Efficiency
Collaboration with programmers
Project Management using program resources

How does IDE make working so easy?

IDE’s are migration form of primitive text editors, which uses full functionality technologies that allow editing the code quickly and efficiently. An IDE typically contains a graphical user interface (GUI) to access the code editor, a compiler or interpreter and a debugger. An IDE starts with a model that translates into a suitable code.

An integrated development environment (IDE) makes working easy by providing facilities such as a source code editor, build automation tools and a debugger to programmers for software development. IDE makes easy to see a visual representation of the files and makes it more understandable for the user.

Depending on the kind of program, IDE can build and deploy the whole process easier. Using a good IDE makes compiling and debugging easier. You can compile and run the program, by clicking the Run button and debug the program, by clicking the debug button.

What can you do with IDE?

With IDE, you can develop applications such as standalone or dynamic web applications, etc. IDE includes a code editor, a compiler or interpreter, and a debugger, to access graphical user interface and allows the user to write and edit the source code in the code editor.

IDE can develop software applications by using a set of tools, which makes easier to write programs. The main objective of using IDE is that it allows coding quickly and efficiently. IDE includes built-in compilers, which convert the program into machine level code or byte code and saves a lot of time. You can also select multiple programming languages of your choice. Some IDE’s include server like Net Beans or GlassFish server to test the web applications easily.

IDE’s have some common features as listed below:

Text editor: It provides a text editor to write and manage source code.
Debugger: It uses debugging tools to identify the errors in the source code.
Compiler
Code Completion
Programming language support
Integration and use of plug-ins

Working with IDE

It contains a code editor, a compiler, and a debugger, which are accessed through a graphical user interface.

You can work with IDE by performing some operations as listed below:

Writing Code: You can write and modify the program code to perform the needed tasks.

Compiling Code: The code can be compiled by translating program code into machine executable code.

Debugging Code: The code can be tested to ensure the proper result.

Monitor Resources: It has the ability to monitor resources like memory usage, checking hard disk space, etc.

Build automation tools: These tools provide common automation tools for developing tasks.

IDE’s provides some built-in tools which help programmers in writing code quickly and easily. For instance, you can create PHP web applications by using both Eclipse and PHPEclipse.

Advantages

IDE’s can be used to create software applications, drivers and utilities.
It allows developing software in any programming language without spending much time on language syntax.
IDE has the ability to correct syntaxes, gives a warning about memory leaks, assist in writing quality of code, etc.
It has increased efficiency, where you can code faster with less effort and its features help in organizing resources, preventing mistakes and provide shortcuts.
It supports collaboration, in which a group of programmers can easily work together within an IDE.
It provides program resources are easy.
When creating applications, IDE manages resources such as library files, header files, etc at specified locations.
This includes preinstalled libraries for a specific programming language.
That makes development easier by using syntax highlight features.
It makes the creation of database applications easily.
They provide services to sort, search, retrieve and process data in the database.
IDE’s can able to translate code from high-level languages to the object code of the targeted platform at the compile or build stage.
It helps to keep track of the code, generates code and allows searching.

Required Skills

Based on the IDE environment, you need to have skills while developing the application.

For NetBeans IDE, you should have knowledge of several programming languages such as PHP, JavaFX, C/C++, JavaScript, Perl, Ruby and more.

Microsoft Visual Studio IDE supports about 36 different programming languages such as C, C++, Visual Basic, .NET, C#, F#, JavaScript, TypeScript, XML, XSLT, HTML, and CSS and so on. The user should have knowledge of these languages if they are working with the respective language. There are other languages such as Python, Ruby, Node.JS, and M (MUMPS) are all available through plug-ins.

Komodo IDE, required skills are Perl, Python, Tcl, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript and more.
Aptana IDE, required skills are HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX and more.
Blackadder, need Python and Ruby skills.
Germany, need C, Java, PHP, HTML, Python, Perl, Pascal and more skills.
Xcode, need Objective-C, Objective-C 2, Cocoa, and Cocoa Touch APIs skills.
MonoDevelop, need C/C++, Visual Basic, C#, and other .NET languages skills.
Espresso, need HTML, CSS, XML, and JavaScript and PHP skills.
Coda, need PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, AppleScript and Cocoa API skills.

Why should we use IDE?

The extra functionality of IDE saves time, make coding easier. The below points specify why we should use IDE instead of editors:

Debugging

The debugger is a tool for monitoring and analyzing the programs, and generates the output as specified. The Komodo IDE contains debugging features such as breakpoint control, remote debugging, watching variables, viewing the call stack, etc.

Unit Testing

It’s necessary to conduct proper testing for checking the quality of code in software. You can do the testing with different types of testing software such as PHPUnit, Perl TAP, Python unit test, and Ruby’s rake test to support frameworks for your language.

Code Refactoring & Profiling

These are advanced features which you will find in an IDE. Code refactoring allows to change the code globally that saves time instead of changing the code manually. Code profiling quickly recognizes the congestion by analyzing the code performance based on a function-by-function basis.

Source Code Integration

When you’re working with Version Control System (VCS) tasks, you do not have to use complicated commands. An IDE contains necessary commands like push, pull/update, commit, history, etc; which keeps the application up to date with the team and vice versa without using another tool. For instance, Komodo IDE supports for Subversion, Mercurial, Git, Perforce, Bazaar, and CVS.

Development and Release Tool Integration

The IDE software can easily integrate tools or other systems and allows accessing them easily. Some features include spell-checking, track changes and database integrations with the database explorer.

Scope

It gives a user-friendly framework for different types of programming languages, such as Visual Basic, Java, and PowerBuilder. It contains a complete package including source code editor, build automation tools, debugger, compiler, interpreter and other features such as syntax highlighting, support for the version control system, auto-completion of keywords (where you start typing the name of a function or variable, it fills out the rest of the name), etc. IDE integrates project files, which you work on and includes version control of source files such as git repository.

Some IDE’s have the following things:

Class browser:- This tool can be used to determine and reference the properties of an object-oriented class hierarchy.
Object browser:- It is used to determine the objects instantiated in a running application program.
Class hierarchy diagram:- It allows the programmer to visualize the structure of object-oriented programming code.

Why do we need IDE?

It provides inclusive facilities to a programmer for the development of software. Below are some points, which describe why we should use IDE in the application development:

It has the ability to debug your program and compile your code.
It makes easy to see a visual representation of the location of program files.
They provide support for external plug-ins, and you can use them by providing interfaces to external tools like debugging tools.
They provide a console to see the execution result and if you find any errors, you can easily debug the errors and fix them. In C++ example, you can stop the program and check the value of variables. You can set breakpoints to pause the program when it reaches a certain line of code.
IDE uses Graphical User Interface, so you can use the graphical interface of IDE to enter required specifications of the application.

Who is the right audience for learning IDE technologies?

In today’s world, you need multiple tools to be worked with a variety of languages while developing software. It can be used by many people around the world. It is used by thousands of professional developers every day.

How this technology will help you in career growth?

This technology helps programmers and developers to develop software in a single product. If you have good knowledge of this technology, then you will have a lot of development opportunities.

For instance, if you are good at Net Beans or Eclipse IDE, then you can start with Java development career which has excellent opportunities in big companies.

Conclusion

So far we have studied a lot of information on IDE’s including features, advantages, usage of IDE’s, etc. There are different types of IDE’s, which may provide a different collection of tools as well as features available to their environment. Therefore, keeping in mind about features of all IDE’s and decide which environment would work best for you in developing an application.