Integrated Development Environments (IDE)
JavaScript is a language that is interpreted at runtime as there is no need for us to compile it beforehand. There are other ways of writing JavaScript in a non-direct way, such as through transpilation or compilation, but we'll review those later. Before we get too far into working with JavaScript and writing code, we should examine the benefits of using a dedicated development environment to write and manage our JavaScript code.
Using an IDE aligned with the platform and languages you work with provides a number of benefits over a simple text editor. For example, IDEs usually include the following features:
- Linting, formatting, and other cleanup utilities
- Integrated Terminal and command-line access
- Programming language debugging tools
- Robust code completion and hinting as you type
- Snippets and preformed code content
- Built-in compilers (depending on the language and platform)
- Potential emulation...
