Sharu Paul

Sharu Paul

Sharu Paul is a Research Scientist at the Genome Informatics Facility at Iowa State University. His background is in Biotechnology with a Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics. His research is wide-ranging, covering topics from Single-Cell Analyses to the building of Deep Neural Networks. By employing an extensive range of bioinformatic analyses, he seeks to solve big data problems and contributes to developing workshops and tutorials for USDA scientists.

DataScience Workbook / 04: Development Environment / 1. Integrated & Interactive Development Environment (IDE)

Introduction

An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is an application for software development that includes a code editor, debugging tools, and version control system. These softwares are designed to make the process of writing, testing, and debugging code easier and more efficient. Rather than coding directly into a terminal or in a text file, it is usually better to use an IDE.

IDEs include many different tools that help developers code efficiently:

  • Language support: specifically designed to support some programming languages
  • Code editor: auto indentation, code completion, and syntax highlighting
  • Debugging tools: identify and fix errors in the code
  • Version control: track changes over time, collaborate
  • Application testing and deployment

IDEs are essential tools for software development, provide one place to work on all aspects of a project, and have a wide range of features to streamline the development process. Some popular IDEs are , Eclipse, , , , Atom, and Spyder.