text editor, compiler (ide)

Question

What is the best text editor and compiler (ide) for c, c++, html, python programming? Is there one ide which would be a good choice...

Answer 1

IDE's are a complex topic with few definitive answers.  There are usually 1 or 2 favorites for any given language.  There are a few issues to keep in mind:

 

1) Many features are universal these days.  At the same time, their quality can vary.  As an example: "autocomplete" is a pretty common feature, but it's actually very difficult to make it work and different IDE's handle it more or less effectively.

 

2) A given language usually has subtle quirks about the way it's programmed.  A good IDE for the language will cater to those quirks.  Lisp, for example, is very heavy on parenthesis and has unique tabbing standards.  A good IDE for Lisp will have extra parenthesis management and will help the user quickly tab their code to the standards.  Developing that IDE requires an intimate knowledge of the language.

 

3) An all purpose IDE often has difficulty being specific enough to a language to be AS effective as a dedicated IDE.  It takes a lot of work to make an IDE optimal for a given language.

 

There are a few "all purpose" IDE's.  Eclipse is a pretty well known and well respected one, though it can be somewhat sluggish on older PCs.  A much lighter option would be Notepad++ or Sublime.  Eclipse requires a plugin for each language and it will give you a lot of features.  Notepad++/Sublime is much more barebones and requires more setup but you really get familiar with how to customize it.  There are lots and lots of tutorials online for both of these IDEs.

 

I used to want one IDE to rule them all, and it's still a cool notion.  In practice, though, I've found that working with the best IDE for each language works the best.  This is because I get the best feature's for the language.  It can sometimes be jarring switching from one IDE to another, but the benefits have proven more important for me.  Then again, I use a LOT of languages and some are pretty obscure.  The languages that you've posted about are all pretty mainstream and the IDE's I listed above would probably be fine.  In particular, "Aptana" is a pretty great plugin for HTML development in Eclipse.

 

Good luck.

 

- Jon Heard