Code Editors Definition
A code editor is a software or an application that helps programmers to compile and edit their codes before publishing or uploading it to the web server,it is also the place where programmers spend most of their time.
TYPES OF CODE EDITORS
There are two main types of code editors: IDEs and lightweight editors. Many people use one tool of each type.
IDE
The term IDE (Integrated Development Environment) refers to a powerful editor with many features that usually operates on a “whole project.” As the name suggests, it’s not just an editor, but a full-scale “development environment.”
An IDE loads the project (which can be many files), allows navigation between files, provides autocompletion based on the whole project (not just the open file), and integrates with a version management system (like git), a testing environment, and other “project-level” stuff.
If you haven’t selected an IDE yet, consider the following options:
- Visual Studio code(cross-platform, free).
- Webstorm (cross-platform, paid).
For Windows, there’s also “Visual Studio”, not to be confused with “Visual Studio Code”. “Visual Studio” is a paid and mighty Windows-only editor, well-suited for the .NET platform. It’s also good at JavaScript.
Many IDEs are paid, but have a trial period. Their cost is usually negligible compared to a qualified developer’s salary, so just choose the best one for you.
Light weight editor
“Lightweight editors” are not as powerful as IDEs, but they’re fast, elegant and simple.
They are mainly used to open and edit a file instantly.
The main difference between a “lightweight editor” and an “IDE” is that an IDE works on a project-level, so it loads much more data on start, analyzes the project structure if needed and so on. A lightweight editor is much faster if we need only one file.
In practice, lightweight editors may have a lot of plugins including directory-level syntax analyzers and autocompleters, so there’s no strict border between a lightweight editor and an IDE.
Best code editors for developers and programmers
01. Sublime Text 3
The best code editor all-round – but you’ll have to pay for it
Price: $80 (free indefinite preview) | Platform: Windows, Mac OS, Linux
Sublime Text is the editor that really changed the way the best code editors worked. It is lightweight, open and ready to edit your file almost as soon as you’ve managed to click the button. This responsiveness is one of the things that makes it the best code editor in its class. If you want to open a file and make a quick edit, waiting for a few seconds for loading may not sound like much, but the delay can grow tedious.
Another big benefit of Sublime Text is that it’s crazily extensible, with a huge and ever-growing list of plugins available to install via the package manager. Options include themes with which to customise the editor’s appearance, code linters (which can assist with more quickly locating any errors in your code), Git plugins, colour pickers, and more.
Sublime Text is free to download and start using, but for extended use you’ll need to shell out $80 for a licence – and the programme will remind you fairly regularly about payment until you cough up. If you decide to pay, the same licence key can be used by you for any computer that you use, so you can enter the same code on all your machines to make the payment reminder popup go away. The paid licence, however, is perhaps Sublime Text’s biggest downside – there are a number of competitive products available to developers for no cost.
02. Visual Studio Code
The most fully featured, well-rounded code editor
Price: Free | Platform: Windows, Mac OS, Linux | Developer: Microsoft
Visual Studio Code is a code editor developed by Microsoft, and surprisingly, is open-source software. Of the code editors in this list, it’s probably the closest to being an IDE. It’s very robust, and is also one of the slower programs when starting up. However, while using it, VS Code is quick and able to handle quite a few interesting tasks, such as quick Git commits or opening and sorting through multiple folders’ worth of content.
VS Code has seen a meteoric rise in popularity – it is continually growing its user base and attracting developers away from other editors. VS Code has a built-in terminal, as well as built-in Git support, both of which are big winners for fans of this program. Its ‘IntelliSense’ feature offers autocompletion of code as well as information on the parameters of functions and known variable names.
03. Codespaces
A new browser-based code editor from Microsoft and Github
Price: Free | Platform: Browser | Developer: Microsoft
Microsoft, owner of Github, has made it clear that its vision for the 2020s is all about the cloud, and here’s a good example. Launched this May, Codespaces is a code editor based on Visual Studio Code that’s entirely based in the browser.
Codespaces has a browser-based editor with support for Git repos, extensions, and a built-in command line interface so you can edit, run, and debug your applications from any device. Obviously this enables you to work from anywhere, and makes collaboration with other devs easier. Code-editing functionality in GitHub will always be free, although Microsoft plans to offer simple pay-as-you-go pricing for Codespaces cloud environments.
You launch Codespaces straight from Github, which makes for a nice bit of synergy. If you prefer not to use a browser, that’s fine too, as support for Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio is built-in.
04. Atom
The best free code editor, with a friendly UI
Price: Free | Platform: Windows, Mac OS, Linux | Developer: Github
Atom is open source and developed by GitHub. In its initial development, it was heavily influenced by the new style of editor made popular by Sublime Text. However, there are key differences: Atom is free and open source, and offers easy out-of-box integration with Git and GitHub. Atom has historically had performance and stability problems, but those have diminished significantly as it has matured. It’s true that it still launches slower than some code editors, but it’s just as reliable and quick to use as any of the rest after that.
05. Brackets
The best code editor for new users
Price: Free | Platform: Windows, Mac OS, Linux | Developer: Adobe
Brackets is Adobe’s open-source editor, and seems to be a very well rounded software. It doesn’t natively support as many languages for syntax highlighting as some of the others (but it still has quite a few). Because of its focus on front end technologies, it also supports CSS preprocessors like Less and Sass.
Brackets doesn’t come out on top on many of the usual speed and reliability metrics, but it does have several unique features worth investigating. It is mostly configurable via its menus, whereas most of the other editors in this list require you to edit configuration files (you can also edit the configuration file in Brackets if you prefer).
There’s also an interesting feature for quick CSS editing. You can use a hotkey to pop out a small section on an HTML page, then edit any CSS rules that are currently affecting the element that you have selected. This means you can quickly locate a styling problem and fix it without having to waste time searching around.
An interesting design decision is that Brackets doesn’t use tabs at all for showing open files. Rather, there is an open files menu in the top left, above the file tree. If you’re using the split-window view, this open tabs list also splits ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ for easier location of the file you’re looking for. VS Code uses a similar open files menu, for example, but also uses tabs. In Brackets, this enables maximum screen real estate, but could be a jarring experience if you’re used to tab navigation. Got a lot of files? Reliable cloud storage is crucial.
est Free Code Editors for Windows & Mac
6.) Notepad++
Notepad++ is a popular free to use code editor written in C++. It uses pure win32 API which offers greater execution speed and small program size. It runs only in the window’s environment, and it uses GPL License.
Platform: Windows
Price: Free
Features:
- This free text editor supports syntax highlighting for languages like PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
- Auto-completion: Word completion, Function completion
- Macro recording and playback
- User-defined Syntax highlighting and folding
- Entirely customizable GUI
- Multi-view and Multi-Language support
Download link: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
7.NetBeans
NetBeans is an open-source code editor tool for developing with Java, PHP, C++, and other programming languages. With this editor, code analyzers, and converters. It allows you to upgrade your applications to use new Java 8 language constructs.
Platforms: Mac Windows Linux
Price: Free
Features:
- Easy & Efficient Project Management
- This free text editor offers fast & Smart Code Editing
- Rapid User Interface Development
- Helps you to write bug-free code
Download link: https://netbeans.org
8.Bluefish
Bluefish is a cross-platform editor is a speedy tool which can handle dozens of files simultaneously. The tool allows developers to conduct remote editing. This code editor tool offers many options to s programmers and web developers, to write websites, scripts, and programming code.
Price: Free
Platforms: Mac Windows Linux
Features:
- Loads hundreds of files within seconds
- Auto-recovery of changes in modified documents after a crash, kill or shutdown.
- Project support feature helps you to work efficiently on multiple projects.
- Unlimited undo/redo functionality.
Download link: http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html
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