Programmers spend a lot of time writing, reading, and editing code, and using a text editor or an IDE (integrated development environment) to make this work as efficient as possible is essential. A good editor will do simple tasks, like highlighting your code’s structure so you can catch common bugs as you’re working. But it won’t do so much that it distracts you from your thinking. Editors also have useful features like automatic indenting, markers to show appropriate line length, and keyboard shortcuts for common operations.

An IDE is a text editor with a number of other tools included, like interactive debuggers ...