If you are a developer and like to code a lot you might have heard about the 2 different coding environments, the Text Editors and the IDE or Integrated Development Environment. But what's the difference between them and which will suit you better, Let's see the comparison by the Most used IDE and Text Editors.
Comparing all the Text Editors and IDE will take a lot of Time This is Done in 2 Articles First let's see About Popular Text Editors. And in the Next Article Let's See about IDE's.
What is a Text Editor?
First Lets see about the Text Editors, The Feature of Text Editors are:
- File Customization and Editing, All simple tasks like writing or editing a file can be easily done by a Text Editor, Also creating files, managing, and updating is easy.
- Text Editors are Lightweight. But what does lightweight mean and why it matters. Suppose you have a low-end device and if the text editor is not lightweight then it will require a lot of processing power and memory to load all the modules and files required to run. So the major Feature of a text editor is, it should be Light Weight.
- They are Fully Customizable, Unlike IDE which we talk about later Text editors allow you to customize the whole software like themes, colors fonts, etc. This can be sometimes if you like using different kinds of themes and fonts in your text editors.
- Some of the Text Editors also provide an environment for coding different languages like python, C, Java, etc. But they use an external compiler or interpreter to compile and run the code.
- Another Feature of the Text editor is Checking Spellings, Grammer, and Syntax. This feature might be useful if you are a developer but the syntax feature is kinda useful for languages like python, C, etc.
These are the Major Features of Text Editors let's see the Most Used Text Editors.
1. Sublime Text
Sublime Text is one of the most used Text editors. The reason behind this is, it is super light software and doesn't use much of the system resources. It is Paid Software but you can get a free version also. You can just open up the Editor and start writing, no additional settings or environments are required. It also provides integration to various no of programming languages like python, java, c, JavaScript, golang, etc. It is a Platform independent editor and can run in any Operating system like Windows, Mac, and even in Linux. It also has Dark and Light Themes. Just seeing the Image we can say how cool it looks, Doesn't it?
More about Sublime Text At Sublime Text 4
Another Feature of the Sublime text that is why people like it the most is because of the Look of the Text editors and the no of customizations we can apply to it. We can customize almost anything in the editor, from Text styles to fonts, Colors to themes, Backgrounds, etc. Sublime Text also provides plugin support by which we can add additional features which are developed by the sublime text community. Developers always try to use shortcuts, auto-completes while writing a code and sublime provides this functionality also. It autocompletes in most languages like HTML, Python, etc., and we assign our own keyboard shortcuts for our work environments.
2. Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code is developed by Microsoft in 2015, Microsoft also developed Visual Studio, the point to remember here is that Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code are different Software, VS is an IDE whereas VScode is a Text Editor. Visual Studio Code is Text Editor which Supports multilanguage and multiple frameworks, libraries, etc. Being a Text Editor provides many features of an IDE like debugging, Auto completions, keyboard shortcuts, etc. The only Downside of VScode is that it is not as much as light as other text editors, and New Developers or programmers can be overwhelmed by seeing the interface of VScode. It can be used by Daily developers to advance programmers, for a beginner's Sublime text, Notepad++ is good enough.
Download VScode From: Visual Studio Code
To start working with VScode first we need to install the required functionalities of the languages which we are using, for example, if we are using a python language first we need to install the python extension in the VScode, this can be done in few clicks. There is a huge library or market for this kind of extension in VScode from programming languages to Live servers, Database extensions to Software customizations. VScode is also fully customizable like other text editors we can edit the theme and fonts according to our needs.
3. ATOM and Notepad++
Both ATOM and Notepad++ are popular Text Editors and used by many developers even now. Atom being an open-source technology provides many functionalities and flexibilities. The Software is also being updated and evaluated regularly. It also integrates with Github and it's a lighter edited than VScode. It is mainly used for developing huge projects and programmers which require one or more frameworks, libraries, etc. It is also platform-independent and can run in any Operating system like Windows, Linux, Mac-os. The feature I like the most in ATOM is the whenever you need a new dependency for your work there is no need to search on the web, you can directly search in ATOM and install it. As it is open source technology there are a wide variety of plugins and themes available to download in the community.
Download Atom From Atom Text Editor
Notepad++ also ties for the 3rd Place, It is a fully free text editor and you can enjoy all its features at no extra cost. The other feature which most of the text editors don't have is it has been translated into almost most of the languages so anyone can understand the interface easily. Auto completions, Debugging, Theme customization are other notable features, but we will be not able to customize as much as we can in text editors like sublime and VScode, and the look of Notepad++ is kinda Traditional.
Stay Tuned For the Next Article To find about Popular IDE's and The Comparision