IDEs

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)

Some developers like to use command line environments to do their development. I can’t stop you from doing that, if you really want to, but there are definitely advantages to using an IDE:

  • An integrated editor, often providing keyword color coding, automatic formatting, etc.
  • An integrated debugger, providing breakpoints and controlled execution, etc.
  • The ability to conveniently switch among compiler and standard library versions for C++11, C++17, etc.

Here’s a good overview of some IDEs across a number of platforms.

Here’s another web page that provides some useful information about IDEs.

In developing this website, I worked on an iMac, and used Apple’s Xcode, and found it to be very useful and easy to use.