‘WHAT IS BEST IDE’ this
one of basic question asked by any programmer when he starts programming. There
is no direct answer for that saying this best and this bad because it’s depend
on many reasons. OK, then what would be those reasons. Let’s talk about one by
one to select the Best IDE for you to start programming.
If user likes for hard
coding, they can use notepad or notepad++ or sublime text or Vim or Emacs. Those are basically text
editors so there is not error checking, auto building option, auto expectation handling,
debugging and many of thing such like which is available in IDEs. But those
text editors are able to handle any language. User have to compile and run
those programs manually. So this takes
time and unable debug or find errors. As a solution for those kind of issues integrated
development environment aka IDE is created which is able to various kind of
actives that wasn't able to illustrate in normal text editors.
So what would be main
things do we have to consider when selecting the IDE which is suited to you.
There are some basically categories you have to refer before selecting IDE
- Language you are going to use
- OS you are using
- Graphic user interfaces(GUIs)
- Supporting languages for IDE
IDEs are not created to
program all programming languages in the world so that you have to select an
IDE for particular language you are going to program. So you have to select an
IDE which is specified to that language
If we consider Java,
there are various kind of IDE in the Internet. Most of the time those IDEs are
free but there are IDEs not free. Eclipse, Netbeans and IntelliJ IDEA are most
popular IDEs but these IDEs are capable of configuring to some other language if
you are a web developer, you can use Aptana Studios or Bracket rather than this
there are lots of IDE specific more languages used in web. There are PHP
editor, HTML editors and JavaScript editors but previous mention ones are able
handle PHP, HTML and JavaScript. So sometimes you have to select an IDE that
capable of handling multiple language at the same time. So if you’re C++, C#
and VB.NET, you have to think about having IDE like Visual Studios which is developed
by Microsoft but there alternative like Mono Develop.
So first you have to do
some research in Internet about IDE which is built for your particular language
then you have to consider other factors to select the best IDE suit for your
need.
OS you are using
This is one of minor
factor today standard because lot of language are open-source and those support
Windows, Linux and Mac. But this act as a major factor for some of language
like gaming language XNA, its run on Windows and need Visual Studios to install.
Not only that some IDE are having particular platform to run. For an example, Visual Studios run on Windows and there are some IDEs which run on Mac on like
Coda and WebScripter.
Graphic user interfaces
User friendliness and
popularity of an IDE depend on GUI because if there is well structured GUI on
IDE then that IDE will be good one to use. Not only that sometime well-structured
one won't if those GUI are not well designed. What is good GUI it means GUI
elements have to provide well-structured manner for example file/project
explore, it should be well designed and have to display thing that user needed
only without showing other nonsense. Not only that icons in short cut menus,
those have to be designed at a glance user can have identify what this icon all
about.
By using well-structured
and well-designed GUIs, an IDE can run over other IDEs which is designed for a
particular language. So when you selecting an IDE, have look at some screen
shot of that particular IDE and select what interfaces you would like.
Supporting languages for
IDE
This for user
convenient. If you don't like to have several number of IDE each particular
language so then you have to select one that that can support for your
preferred languages.
So if we take Eclipse as
an example, it capable of handling lots of languages. C, C++, Java, HTML,
Android, PHP and several number of languages. But this depends on you selection
of language if you programming in VB you can't use Eclipse, you have to Visual Studios. So when you selecting one have some digging about that IDE with in your
programming language scope.
1. What are languages support
2. How can they plug to
IDE
3. What are the thing
you need to have for that particular language before plug that language to IDE
So I think this post help you to understand some factors you have to
consider when you selecting an IDE which is best suited for you to start
coding.
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