Tools & Facilities in IDEs
What is an IDE?
- An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is software designed to make writing high-level languages more efficient
- IDEs include tools and facilities to make the process of creating/maintaining code easier, such as:
- Editor
- Error diagnostics
- Run-time environment
- Translators
Editor
- An editor gives users an environment to write, edit and maintain high-level code
- Editors can provide:
- Basic code formatting tools - changing the font, size of the font and making text bold etc
- Coloured keywords - using colour to make it easier to identify keywords, for example 'print', 'input' and 'if' in Python
- Code editing - auto-completion and auto-correction of code, bracket matching and syntax checks
- Commenting code - allows sections of code to be commented out easily to stop it from being run or as comments on what the program is doing
Error-diagnostics
- Tools that help to identify, understand and fix errors in code, such as:
- Identifying errors - highlight particular areas of code or provide direct error messages where the error may have appeared e.g. indentation errors etc
- Debugger - provide a 'step through' command which provides step by step instructions and shows what is happening to the code line by line, useful for finding logic errors
Run-time environment
- Gives users the ability to run and see the corresponding output of a high-level language
Translator
- Built in to compile or interpret code without the need for an extra piece of software
Worked example
James creates his programs using an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
Describe two tools or facilities that an IDE commonly provides [4]
How to answer this question
- Name two tools or facilities
- For each tool or facility, give a reason why its helpful
Answer
- Editor
- ...to enable program code to be entered/edited
- Error diagnostics/debugging
- ...to display information about errors (syntax/run-time) / location of errors
- ...suggest solutions
- Run-time environment
- ...to enable the program to be run
- ...check for run-time errors / test the program
- Translator / compiler / interpreter
- ...to convert the high-level code into machine code / low-level code / binary
- ...to enable code to be executed / run
Exam Tip
There are 4 main tools/features of an IDE you need to know.
Editor, error diagnostics, run-time environment and translator
If a question asks for 2 tools/features, do not give multiple examples from the same tool/feature, e.g. coloured keywords and commenting are both examples of the same tool/feature (editor)
