Common tools and facilities in IDEs
Introduction
Programmers write programs! There are a number of key tasks that they need to do every time they write a new program. These include actually writing the code, finding errors with it if there are any, translating it, running it and documenting the code, in case it has to be changed in the future. Because these jobs have to be done again and again, programs called Integrated Development Environments have been developed. These programs allow a programmer to do all of the common tasks involved in writing a program in one place easily.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
An IDE is a software application that provides a programmer with the tools to write, debug, translate, run and document applications.
Typical IDE tools include:
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- A text editor, so that you can write and edit programming code. You type the programming code into the text editor and also make any changes you need to make in this tool.
- Debugging tools also called 'error diagnostics', so you can find any errors in programs. This is also known as 'debugging a program'. These tools help you locate and identify syntax problems with the code.
- Translators, so you can turn the source code into object code.
- A runtime environment, so you can actually run the code and see the results.
- Auto-documentation tools, so the associated documentation for a program can be generated automatically and to a standard form. Programs need to be documented because changes may need to be made in the future, often by someone who didn't write the original code.
There are many IDEs about. Visual Basic is written in an IDE. Some of you may have used the Scratch IDE to produce games. Greenfoot is an excellent IDE, used by pupils to write games in Java. Other IDEs for Java include JGrasp and Eclipse.In fact, there will be various IDEs you could select from for every high level language and often, an IDE can be used for a wide variety of different languages.