IDE Advantages and Disadvantages

IDE Advantages

A couple of people have asked me 'what is an IDE?' so I'll give you a quick answer. IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. This is a computer program, such as Visual Studio, or Eclipse, or Netbeans, or Borland, etc. that allows you to write a computer program in notepad form. The main advantage to using an IDE, instead of typing your program into notepad is that the IDE usually checks your code for errors as you type.

The biggest advantage that I have found:
1. You can run your code, line by line, and you can find out exactly where your errors are. On top of that, you can also view the status of other variables dynamically as you step through the code.
Look at this snippet of code(I am using Perl, not C#):

1 SisterAge=17;
2 BrotherAge;
3 print "Your brother's age is " . BrotherAge;
4 BrotherAge=15;
5
6

Line 3 has an error, because it is trying to access a value that hasn't been assigned yet. I know this is a simple example, but imagine if you have written about 1000 lines, and then you'll see how useful it is. It is so easy to miss a simple mistake, and you'll be pulling your hair out trying to find it!

There are other reasons why using an IDE is great:
2. You can use it to develop a GUI, because the most common controls, such as buttons, checkboxes, etc. already exist. You can just click and drag them to the screen.
3. The IDE can automatically fix your errors or suggest the proper fixes.
4. The IDE will automatically add the proper packages that you need to import (in Eclipse)
5. You can perfom multiple undos to correct your mistakes you just made.
6. You can get updates and notifications of common fixes in email or through your RSS within your IDE.
7. Some IDEs even have a team of people that can help you with your programming, and they can connect to your computer with remote assistance. It's sort of like a warranty that is provided with your purchase of an IDE (of course school provided software or free software doesn't count).

You can't count out that there are some drawbacks to using an IDE
1. They take up a lot of space on your computer
2. They can be a hassle to update and/or install packages
3. You have to learn each one well, and sometimes there is a steep learning curve.

However, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, but I would say, PLEASE don't try to go out and learn them all. Just stick to one or two and learn them well. Here is a previous post about IDEs http://josephamospowell.blogspot.com/2009/08/visual-studio-vs-eclipse.html