Integrated development environments

Writing large can be a complex task. Various tools exist to help the programmer write clear, :

automatic line numbering
error diagnosis
colour coding
trace
break points
watch
auto-correct
auto-suggestion
auto-indent
linker
loader

Some or all of these tools are often gathered together in known as an .

Many brands of IDE exist:

Python comes with a simple IDE called IDLE.
Eclipse and Netbeans are two fully featured IDEs used for programming in Java, JavaScript and HTML.
Visual Studio is an IDE that supports several including Visual Basic.NET and C#.

The choice of IDE is down to the personal preference of the programmer. Some programmers enjoy the variety of tools offered by some IDEs, while others prefer a simpler approach.

Editors

Editors are software that allow programmers to write and edit code. Editors are often fairly simple, but usually offer facilities such as:

automatic line numbering
colour coding
auto-correct
auto-suggestion
auto-indent

These tools help to improve the readability of code. However, they do not usually help to identify errors.

Debugging tools

Debugging tools help programmers to locate and fix errors.

Break points enable a program to be paused or stopped at predetermined points. The programmer can then examine different parts of the running program, such as the values held in variables or the status of . This information tells the programmer whether or not the program is working as expected.

Variable watch lets the programmer see the changing values of variables as the program runs. Again, this enables the programmer to check if the program is functioning as expected.

Some IDEs pinpoint exactly where a occurs, or at which line in a program an error is generated. This is known as error trapping. Tracing involves recording information as a program runs to see how different elements of the program are affected as it progresses.

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Software development - EduqasIntegrated development environments