Best Code Editors to Watch Out For Software Development

Nishtha Singh
Aug 22, 2017 · 4 min read

Writing good code in minimum time is a skill that must be possessed by each and every developer or programmer to remain competitive and productive for the long run. It is safe to say that writing code has become a fundamental requirement for numerous emerging segments including IoT and AI. Now code editor being the most crucial aspects of software developing has its own interface, functionality, Pros and Cons.

With the emergence of new programming languages, the experienced coders will attest, the right IDE and/or code editor is vital for producing and maintaining high-quality code. In the following article, I will highlight several code editors that have caught the consideration of the some of the worldwide software development communities, like PHP and Python, and will continue to be popular in 2017. But before that one needs to understand the true difference between IDE and code editor.

With the developing age where writing code becoming a common skill, people are still being confused about the exact definition of an IDE and a code editor. Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a self- contained package that allows one to write, compile, execute and debug code in the same place. Whereas a code editor is a simple looking text editor comprising of numerous features that facilitate the process of writing code through native capabilities as well as optional plugins.

In addition to this, both IDE and code editors do share some common features such as code completion, hints, highlighting sections of code, etc. And choosing either of them is quite a matter of personal preferences.

Best Code Editors to Watch Out For Software Development

Notepad++

One of the most popular editors used by professionals to type a code in. Although there is nothing extraordinary to learn about the Notepad ++. The light footprint and interface make it is an easy to use tool, especially on Windows. If we talk about its specific range of features, one can easily install supporting plugins and extend the functionality to a great extent

Its benefits:

  • Supports Syntax Folding and Syntax Highlighting;
  • Auto-completion of words, functions and much more;
  • Comes with WYSIWYG and multi-view support;
  • Extensible using plugins;
  • Free

Atom

Created by GitHub platform, Atom is free to be used code editor. Developed in 2014, it is considered as one of the youngest code editor tools by numerous software developers across the globe. Supported by CoffeeScript language, Atom is pretty much known for its command palette and easy to use negative interface.

Its benefits:

  • Highly customizable with almost 2,000 theme variations
  • Supports plugins to extend its functionality, with thousands of options available
  • Includes a flexible auto-completion system
  • Customizes how each language appears on your editor
  • Available for Windows, Linux, and OS X operating systems

Sublime Text 3

A cross platform text editor that supports most of the programming languages and has syntax highlighting. All one requires to do is install the plugin supporting Python programming language. Besides if we consider the visual part, the editor contains various visual themes with a great possibility of downloading additional ones.

Its benefits:

  • Quick Navigation; easy to use with excellent UI and UX
  • Command Palette accessibility to snippets, setting, etc.
  • Plugins API in Python
  • Simultaneous editing (Split Editing)
  • A high degree of customization (Customize Anything)
  • Sublime text is easy to use with excellent UI and UX.

Coda 2

This code editor supports Mac text editor and is created for a software development company comprising of a team of flashy programmers especially those who love to work speedily and customize a code in a single line. Coda 2 features essential looking features like code session of your syntax, uploading and revealing your blog pages.

Its benefits:

  • Core features are integrated into a compact format
  • All-in-one code editor, uniting different web development tools under one
  • Auto code completion

TextMate

This code editor, in particular, brings Apple’s approach to operating system in the world of text editors. Starting from ready-made libraries of Macros and snippets of source code or text, TextMate is suitable for reuse for numerous programming languages.

Its benefits:

  • CSS-like Selectors to Pinpoint the Scope of Actions and Settings
  • Foldable Code Blocks
  • Support for More Than 50 Languages
  • Declarative Language Grammars for Graceful Mixing and Hacking

Nano

Based on the curses library, Nano is a console text editor for Unix and Unix-like operating systems. With user-friendly interface, the code editor offers a wide range of benefits:

  • Autoconf support
  • Goto-line# command with or flag
  • Case sensitive search function
  • Interactive search and replace
  • Slang and curses support
  • Autoindent ability
  • Displayed tab width option
  • Regular expression search and replace
  • Toggles for cmd line flags via Meta keys
  • Tab completion when reading/writing files

Conclusion

A code editor is more than just a tool for creating code. Being a code writer or a software programmer, you will definitely have some access to amazing features and tools that streamline the process of writing and debugging code. Here in the post, I have tried covering the top code editors that aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

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Nishtha Singh

Written by

Nishtha Singh works as a Pre-Sales Manager with a software development company named TatvaSoft UK. She relishes writing about various technology trends.

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