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The IDE

Integrated Development Environments are applications used to build and code software projects.

IDEs have a number of tools that aim to make programming easier for programmers.

Tool 1: Code Editors

The biggest feature of an IDE is its code or text editor - this is the section that programmers will type code into. Not all text editors are IDEs - if they cannot compile code, they are just editor

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1. Line numbers
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2. Syntax highlighting
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3. Code folding
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4. Variable watching
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5. Auto-complete
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6. Auto-documentation

Tool 2: Error Diagnostics

IDEs should provide accurate and detailed error reports when code does not compile or an error is detected. Errors can be detected at runtime (i.e. when the code is executed) or during development.

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1. Debugging
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2. Breakpoints
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3. Stepping

Tool 3: Run-time Environment

The run-time environment allows a programmer to test their code by running it.

If the program crashes, the run-time environment can see what happened and give useful information to the programmer.

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1. Translator (integrated compiler or interpreter, or both)
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2. Version control
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3. Output window