What is a code editor?
A code editor is a tool to write code in a programming language for a computer program. A computer program is a building block for software, a website, and an operating system.
Code editors replaced the old text editors like Notepad on Microsoft and Text Edit on Mac, as programmers used to find it challenging and time-consuming to write code on them. The energy and time saved due to code editors made them a preferred mode of writing code.
Features of a code editor
A code editor has features that make the life of a programmer easy. They allow convenience in the compilation and interpretation of code. Though features and their importance in a code editor depend upon the coding language, here are five common features of a code editor.
Code suggestion
It’s a feature that fills or suggests the further line of code with initial keystrokes. For example, suppose a programmer is writing a CSS code for an element on the website while writing properties and variables for that class. In that case, the programmer will get suggestions, as shown in the image below.
Syntax highlighting
Syntax highlighting displays the source code text in different colors and fonts based on the term categories of the code, like variables, elements, attributes, comments, control flow, etc. This increases the readability of the code and eases the effort to find the errors. Here is how an HTML code looks with standard rendering and syntax highlighting.
Error and warning marks
Writing code requires a sharp focus, and a single mistake can make it not compile and malfunction. While writing huge lines of code, it is quite natural to make errors, but finding these can be frustrating and tedious while working on the plain text editor. A code editor simplifies this process and gives error and warning marks while writing code. Here is an example of it.
Brace matching
This is the most important tool while navigating through code. Multiple braces are utilized to write code; each has an opening and closing brace, and it can get confusing when there are levels of braces in a code. Brace matching allows you to see which braces are in a pair. In a code editor, to match, you simply have to click a brace (open or close) to see the highlighted corresponding brace. Here is an image showcasing brace matching. The braces get highlighted in green color.
Auto-indentation
With auto-indentation, the code editor automatically creates an indent for lines of code. Indentation makes code readable and tidy and helps understand the loops, conditions in the code, and code within braces. Here is an image of auto-indentation:
What is the difference between a code editor and IDE
| Evaluation parameter | Code Editor | Integrated development environment (IDE ) |
| Definition | A code editor is a text editor with features that specifically help in writing programming language. | IDE is a collection of software development tools that makes it easy to develop software. A graphic user interface (GUI) is a user-friendly dashboard on IDE that makes it easy to manage components of software development. An IDE contains code editors along with other tools. |
| Components | A simple code editor. | Code editors, debuggers, compilers, interpreters, GUI. |
| Computer memory usage | Lightweight and easy to deploy. | IDE takes up a significant amount of memory and is heavy to deploy. |
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