What does IDE stand for?

Integrated development environments are software applications designed to increase the productivity of programmers who write computer software. These tools combine editing, building, testing, and packaging capabilities into one easy-to-use application that developers can use at any project stage.

An IDE is a tool developers use to quickly create and deploy new applications. IDEs are typically integrated development environments or workbenches that allow developers to write, test, and debug all the software components of an application without manually configuring and integrating multiple utilities. This can be especially useful for onboarding new developers who can rely on an IDE to get up to speed on a team’s standard tools and workflows. In fact, most features of IDEs are meant to save time, like intelligent code completion and automated code generation, which removes the need to type out full-character sequences.

IDEs include a variety of tools to help developers improve their workflow. Parsing code as it is written allows developers to identify errors before they occur, while syntax highlighting enables them to distinguish grammar in the text editor. IDEs also have utilities that allow developers to execute actions without switching between applications, and many IDEs come with class and object browsers and class hierarchy diagrams for specific languages.