What is 'IDE'?

An IDE is an Integrated Development Environment.

IDE's are code editors with beefed-up support for your programming language. Typically, they help to organizing your project and the different file types that it might support, they compile the code and provide debugging support, and will allow you to build a distributable archive or executable.

IDEs are more powerful than text editors but are usually specific to a particular programming language. The increased power means more functionality, but it also means they are harder to learn to use, and the fact that they are specific to a particular programming language means that you cannot use the same development environment when you switch to a project that develops in a different programming language. These may not be issues for you, but they are worth thinking about.

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