Difference between a IDE and text editor?

"IDE" isn't a very well defined term, but in my experience single unit IDEs (as opposed to editor + added plugins) seem to have more powerful debuggers, more integration between different tools in the IDE (e.g. easy to debug unit tests, use of deep code analysis to feed autocompletion, etc). And of course more things work out of the box w/o having to download and configure plugins yourself, and the GUI is often are easier to figure out for new users or novices. But it's a personal choice and the bottom line is you should try the tools you're considering and choose the one that fits best with your needs.


IDE stands for "Integrated development environment" not just a tool where you write the code, but you can also compile it and debug it.. text editors in their nature, usually don't do that, they tend to go for a broader approach.. be able to edit all types of files, instead of specializing in a particular type or language..

sure you can have plugins, specific for a type of file or language, that compiles/runs/debugs but since is it done by plugins, I guess the "integrated" part is off the table, so doesn't make much sense to call it IDE

And as said before, because the nature of the text editors the potential for integrated development experience will always be limited


In the end, you want something that's going to make you the most productive. Whether that's Notepad or Vim or Sublime or something else is up to the user and the tasks required at the time.

With that said, an IDE does bring some solid benefits for development. Depending on the language and IDE, this may include integrated build tools, source control management, unit testing tools, automatic boilerplate generation, and class/variable refactoring.

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