Lesson Objectives Aims Key Words You should be fully aware of the existence and purpose of IDEs You should know some of the common IDE features You should know that many different IDEs exist with various features Key Words

IDEs IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. Think of the IDE like Gandalf – it is wise, it knows everything that needs knowing The IDE’s job is to make coding in a specific language easier. The IDE also provides debugging, testing and compiling functions.

IDEs The code that we write in the IDE is referred to as source code. It is the source of your programme’s functionality! The process of writing, testing, debugging, packaging, documenting etc is referred to as the build.

IDEs For VB.net we use Microsoft Visual Studio. Other popular IDEs include NetBeans, Eclipse, Emacs, Notepad++, XCode. Some IDEs are more clever than others; some can compile… some can’t, some offer complex syntax checking… some don’t etc etc! Plenty differs. Visual Studio is one of the most comprehensive IDEs around.

IDEs Notepad++ is a simple IDE as it doesn’t offer many features but it can still identify different programming syntaxes to aid programming as seen here. The code will need compiling in a separate compiler. Emacs is the stuff of nightmares (above: Emacs user)

IDEs You will never know more about VB.net than Visual Studio It is able to analyse your code as your type it for possible mistakes/errors without the need for compiling It can make suggestions and autocomplete commands/syntax in real-time as you type It has all of VB’s built in modules at hand It can debug code that is not functioning correctly It can compile code

IDEs The following are all common features found in various IDEs: Colour coding Automatic indentation Code completion and suggestions Live debugging Stepping through code Performance/memory inspection Variable Inspection Version tracking

IDEs Look how much Visual Studio is trying to help. It might as well reach through the screen and hold your hand.

IDEs It points out your mistakes and even offers an explanation as to why your code is so poor.

Review/Success Criteria You should know You you you oughta know