In the earlier days, it was mandatory to use an IDE like JetBrains, or Eclipse, etc for development and programming. But today the text editors have become so advanced that the need for a full fledged IDE is reducing tremendously.
A code editor is one of the most important tools for any developer/programmer/engineer who writes code everyday. It directly makes a difference on productivity, hence it is really important to choose a good code editor. However, The definition of a good editor is different for different people. It depends on what languages and frameworks you use, whether you prefer light weight and fast editors or more feature packed full fledged IDEs. So today, we are gonna discuss about such editors which you should definitely try out.
Notepad++
If you are a casual programmer and do light tasks like writing basic web pages, etc, this is a good choice for you. It is just your notepad, but with coding abilities. It is freely available for windows and linux. Check it out here.
Atom
This is a text editor by Github. They call it "The hackable editor for the 21st Century". And to the most extent, that's true. You can customize almost everything in it as you like. It supports themes, packages, and syntax themes too. Moreover, it is lightning fast and supports the Github workflow amazingly well. Check it out here.
Sublime
This is the time tested editor. It has a free unlimited trial plan as well as a pro plan with 100$ license forever. It supports modern features like autocompletion, linting, syntax highlighting and supports community made themes and extensions. Check it out here.
VsCode
It is a light version of the Visual Studio IDE by microsoft made just for writing code. It was originally launched in 2015, back when editors like sublime text and brackets were super popular in the industry. Now, it is has grown to be most popular editor used in the tech and programming community. It is actively maintained by Microsoft and is open source. It supports extensions, themes, and is highly highly customizable. This is what most developers recommend to beginners as well as anyone looking to write code. Check it out here.
Vim
This is the legendary editor which comes pre-installed with unix based systems(macOS and linux), it is difficult to master as it has a steep learning curve, but gives a programmer real superpowers once mastered. It will increase the programming speed exponentially. It is mostly used by experienced programmers and is not targeted for beginners. However its worth checking out. Check it out here.
TL;DR: If you want to select a code editor today, i strongly recommend to use VsCode as it is beginner friendly and easily customizable. You can also try out different editors and choose the one you are most comfortable with.
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What do you prefer, a text editor or IDE? Comment down below and let me know.
Top comments (3)
What are the features that an IDE offers us? What is the difference between IDE and a text editor? Can VsCode be called a text editor anymore. It can practically run anything.
So true
At least, they are good alternative to the basic notepad
totally True.