Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
130 lines (101 loc) · 4.35 KB

index.md

File metadata and controls

130 lines (101 loc) · 4.35 KB
Raw

Ivy logo

Text Editors and Development Environments

In this short lesson we'll learn about text editors and development environments, programs that help you write code.

Learning objectives:

  • Understand the difference between a text editor and a word processor
  • Know when to use a text editor
  • See common traits of text editors
  • Understand what a development environment is

Rich text, plain text

What is plain text and what is rich text? Broadly:

  • Plain text is made from the characters you see on your keyboard. Plain text is stored in a text file. Code is plain text. This Markdown file is plain text.

  • Rich text is formed from plain text, but includes additional metadata like fonts, styles, colors, and other formatting. Rich text may include embedded images and videos. Rich text is typically stored in a binary, often proprietary, file format. A Microsoft Word doc is rich text.

Text editors are designed to work with plain text. Word processors are designed to work with rich text. It's difficult (but not impossible) to create one type of text with the tool designed for the other, but just as a screwdriver can sometimes be used as a hammer, it's not necessarily the best idea.

Text editors

Text editors help you write code. For example, most offer features such as

  • syntax highlighting
  • command completion
  • automatic indentation
  • parenthesis and bracket matching

Free and open source text editors that are typically installed on a UNIX-based operating system include nano, vi/m, and emacs. A sampling of other prominent text editors (some of which you have to pay for) includes VS Code, Sublime Text, Atom, TextMate (macOS), Nova (macOS), and Notepad++ (Windows).

Every text editor has its advantages and disadvantages. It's best to find one you like and learn how to use it well.

Development environments

An integrated development environment (IDE) is a program that includes a comprehensive set of tools for creating software. IDEs amalgamate tools of the software development process that are typically distributed across text editors, shell programs, and websites. The distinction between a text editor and an IDE is heavily blurred, though; typically, we can consider an IDE to contain a text editor as one of its components.

Two popular IDEs for Python are Spyder and PyCharm.

The choice between using an IDE versus a text editor plus other tools is largely a matter of taste.

Summary

Code is text. Write code with a text editor. It doesn't really matter which text editor you use--find one you like and learn how to use it well. Don't write code with a word processor. Plain text is future-proof.

This table summarizes the concepts covered in this lesson:

Concept Description
plain text Text without formatting
rich text Text with formatting
text editor A program for writing plain text
word processor A program for writing rich text
integrated development environment A program with a comprehensive set of tools for creating software

Note #1

We don't use text editors often in Ivy because most of the course material is in Jupyter Notebook. However, when you write code for school or work, you will undoubtedly use a text editor (or an IDE).

Note #2

Don't get so attached to your text editor that you think your choice is superior to others. Seriously.

Resources