Programming software is a program or set of programs that help software developers by assisting them in creating, debugging, and maintaining other programs and applications. Programming software is also known as a programming tool or software development tool.
Development tools come in dozens of forms, including compilers, linkers, assemblers, debuggers, GUI designer, and performance analysis tools. The right tool can significantly increase your productivity and help you easily maintain the project’s workflow.
Since there are a lot of code editors available in the market, it is difficult for developers to choose one. To make this simpler, these are the very best programming software that can speed up your coding process while offering plenty of useful features.
10. NetBeans
NetBeans IDE offers first-class tools for Java web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile application development. It is consistently the first IDE to support the latest versions of the JDK, Java EE, and JavaFX. It provides smart overviews to help you understand and manage your applications, including out-of-the-box support for popular technologies such as Maven.
With its end-to-end application development features, constantly improving Java Editor, and continual speed and performance enhancements, NetBeans IDE sets the standard for application development with cutting-edge technologies out of the box.
Cons –NetBeans will sometimes crash when used for long periods. While this is rare, it can be frustrating. Memory usage – Large projects can consume a lot of memory when opened in the IDE. Limited support – By default, NetBeans doesn’t come with any professional support.
9. Xcode
Xcode is Apple’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPad, watchOS, and tvOS. It was first published in 2003; the latest stable version is version 13.1, released on October 25, 2021, and is available free through the Mac App Store for macOS Monterey users. Registered developers can download the preview and previous versions of the suite through the Apple Developer website. Xcode includes Command Line Tools (CLT), which enable UNIX-style development through the Terminal application on macOS. They can also be downloaded and installed without the GUI.
Xcode supports source code for C, C ++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Java, AppleScript, Python, Ruby, ResEdit (Rez), and Swift programming languages, with a variety of programming models including but not limited to Cocoa, Carbon, and Java.
Cons –Â Clunky and outdated Objective C makes it more frustrating if you are habituated to using a modern language.No support for tabbed work environments makes it difficult to work with multiple windows. Hardly any information can be found online to solve problems due to a previous Apple NDA on Xcode development. It is a complicated process to export your app onto a device. Will only work with Apple operating systems. The App Store approval process can be annoyingly lengthy.
8. Vim
Vim is open-source software designed to be used both from a command-line interface and as a standalone tool in a graphical interface. It has auto syntax and HTML conversion, error list, set compiler, and auto-correction. For better viewing, you can change the size of the windows or split them horizontally / vertically. It has a lot of commands for doing typical things with the keyboard instead of the mouse. This increases your speed by at least two times. While it looks like a simple plain text editor, it’s a great productivity tool with tons of useful plugins.
Since its release for the Amiga, cross-platform development has made it available on many other systems. In 2006, it was voted the most popular editor amongst Linux Journal readers; in 2015 the Stack Overflow developer survey found it to be the third most popular text editor and in 2019 the fifth most popular development environment.
ConsÂ
Difficult learning curve — There’s a steep learning curve learning all the commands and modes supported in Vim. Then, we’ll still have to spend more time tuning settings to our needs.
High effort to customize— There’s always something that can be tweaked or improved.
7. Atom
Atom is good-looking programming software that is a free editor and scripting tool for developers. Atom is flexible, has a small footprint, and can be extensively hacked and modified. Atom’s package system makes finding custom user-made configurations simple, and it can include syntax highlighting and auto suggestions for almost any language. Atom is a good editor for many coding fields, from software scripting to web development. Atom is cross-platform for Windows, Linux, and OSX. It’s 100% free and open source. One of Atom’s key selling points is its flexibility and readiness for customization. Atom has a massive library of tweaks and wholesale makeovers and is up for whatever you want to do with it. The code syntax is colored by language type – which is helpful to see your code.
Atom supports a wide range of programming languages, including popular languages like R, Python, CSS, JavaScript, C++, Ruby, Java, and many more.
Cons –Â High start-up time
6. Android Studio
Android Studio provides a unified environment where you can build apps for Android phones, tablets, Android Wear, Android TV, and Android Auto. Structured code modules allow you to divide your project into units of functionality that you can independently build, test, and debug. Android Studio is the official Android IDE. It has been specially designed for Android to speed up your development and help you create the highest quality apps for every Android device.
Android Studio offers to build automation, dependency management, and customizable build configurations. You can configure your project to include local and hosted libraries, and define build variants that include different code and resources, and apply different code shrinking and app signing configurations.
Android Studio fully supports editing C/C++ project files so you can quickly build JNI components in your app. The IDE provides syntax highlighting and refactoring for C/C++, and an LLDB-based debugger that allows you to simultaneously debug your Java and C/C++ code.
Cons – Android Studio is not light weighted. It cannot be used on low configuration machines. The emulator is very slow. Takes too long to build and run.
5. Sublime Text
Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for prose, code, and markup. It has a minimap that provides a hierarchical view of files and keyboard shortcuts for most actions. It is lightweight software written in C / C ++ and Python. It can do much heavier work without encountering any problems. There is a decent command palette that allows for extensive use of the editor. Sublime text allows users to customize every aspect of the tool and write code quickly and efficiently. easier to link your code to other code pages. Overall, it does a great job of what it should be.
Another standout feature of Sublime is the powerful search functionality. It’s regular search and replace function can look for regular expressions, make case-sensitive searches, or look for whole words. Plus, it lets you add search results to a buffer for later re-use.
Cons – Doesn’t autosave documents. Often prompts to purchase a new version.
4. IntelliJ IDEA
Written in Java, IntelliJ IDEA incorporates hundreds of features and modifications that simplify programming. Smart code completion for a wide variety of languages, support for the microservices framework, and built-in development tools like version control and terminal make this tool special. Front-end JavaScript applications for Java backends, IntelliJ IDEA has proven to be one of the most versatile IDEs on the market.
Though designed primarily for Java development, IntelliJ IDEA understands many other programming languages, including Groovy, Kotlin, Scala, JavaScript, TypeScript, and SQL, and it provides smart coding assistance for each of them.
Cons – The indexing process sometimes can take a long time and also uses a significant amount of system resources.
3. Notepad++
A free text code editor that supports various languages and uses Win32 API and STL. It is a great companion for coding projects. You can work on multiple documents at the same time, thanks to its multi-tab editing feature. The editor makes it easy to inspect files at all stages of embedded software projects, from HEX source to C ++ source. It does everything better and provides additional features to meet all your needs.
Cons – Sometimes hang when dealing with a large amount of data
2. Visual Studio
Visual Studio IDE is a full-featured development platform for multiple operating systems as well as the web and the cloud. It allows users to smoothly navigate the interface so they can write their code speedily and accurately. It is mostly used by small and midsize businesses to develop computer programs.
What’s more, Visual Studio IDE serves as a testing platform as well. This is where developers can simulate how their applications are going to run in their target environments and ensure they do so smoothly once they are deployed.
Cons – High system configuration is required for smooth operation and also is more expensive than other developing case tools.
1. Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code features a lightning-fast source code editor, perfect for day-to-day use. With support for hundreds of languages, VS Code helps you be instantly productive with syntax highlighting, bracket-matching, auto-indentation, box-selection, snippets, and more. Intuitive keyboard shortcuts, easy customization, and community-contributed keyboard shortcut mappings let you navigate your code with ease.
Visual Studio Code includes an interactive debugger, so you can step through source code, inspect variables, view call stacks, and execute commands in the console. VS Code supports hundreds of programming languages including Python, Â JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS, and HTML to name a few.
Cons – Â Many fragmented plugins (you need to download parts), many low-quality plugins, many paid plugins with very expensive prices. The tool is a hybrid app so it doesn’t have the same overall performance per screen as the official VS for windows. Project management is confusing and fragmented.
