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Various integrated development environment (IDE) software is available for several operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Unix.
Many Linux programmers argue that the existing command-line GNU tools are in themselves an IDE, though with a different (and, some claim, superior) style of interface and under the Linux environment, many programmers still use makefiles and their derivatives. But even on Linux, graphical IDEs are becoming increasingly popular, although almost all of them are built on top of the text-based utilities (which makes them more compatible with each other somehow). Linux programs that use the standard GNU tools are easily ported to other operating systems, including Windows and Mac OS X, because most of these tools have been ported, using Cygwin or some other method like MinGW on Windows. Similarly, many Linux programmers use Emacs, which integrates support for many of the standard Unix/Linux build tools in what its fans believe is an extremely elegant manner. Data Display Debugger is intended to be an advanced graphical front-end for many text-based debugger standard tools, even if Emacs itself has many plug-ins for debugging.
Under Windows, command-line tools not feasible to use for development because Windows has a graphical-only approach, and it is very difficult to implement text-based utilities. As a result, there are multiple commercial and non-commercial solutions, but each of them have a diferent design and as a result they tend to have compatibility problems, also sometimes difficulties porting windows application to other operating systems.
IDEs have always been popular on the Mac, going back to Macintosh Programmer's Workshop, Turbo Pascal and THINK C environments in the mid-1980s.
Open-source IDE's
Windows
Linux/Unix
- emacs is one of the most popular and flexible IDEs, but its cryptic commands and modes have turned many users off to the GNU application.
- KDevelop, an emerging IDE from the KDE project based on the GNU development tools (gcc, make, and GDB), which includes a graphical front-end creator. KDevelop is a mature software.
- Anjuta is especially useful for GNOME developers. It is quite stable and in heavy development at the same time.
- The GNAT Programming System HomePage (http://libre.act-europe.fr/gps/)
- Gambas, under the GPL licence, is based on a BASIC interpreter with object extensions. It is designed to be a programming language like Visual Basic that can run under Linux.
Java-based
- The Eclipse is based on Java can be enhanced with plug-ins, such as DevRocket from MontaVista (for Linux development) witch add support for C, C++ (and Java of course).
- NetBeans for java (under a comunity licence)
Proprietary IDEs
Windows
Java-based
- From Borland, JBuilder is one of the most popular commercial offerings for Java IDEs.
- IntelliJ IDEA from JetBrains is a commercial Java development environment. The primary focus of IDEA is programmer productivity, and it includes considerable support for refactoring and test driven design.
- The Sun ONE Studio from Sun Microsystems is entirely written in Java. Based on the Open source NetBeans tools platform, Sun ONE Studio software allows one to implement and manage platform-independent Java projects. The Community Edition is free of charge.
Linux/Unix
- For the Linux platform, Borland has released Kylix for Object Pascal, C++, and C.
- Code Forge (http://www.codeforge.com/products/?id=4)
Macintosh
- On the Macintosh, the most prevalent IDE in recent times is CodeWarrior from Metrowerks.
- Apple also produces a comprehensive IDE for Mac OS X, Xcode, which replaces an earlier, less integrated set of tools called ProjectBuilder.
- REALbasic (http://www.realbasic.com) is an easy-to-use cross-platform development environment. It creates native executable for Windows, Linux and MacOS 9/X.
See also
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