On many OS, the compiler is installed as a part of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for that OS. An IDE consists of a set of programs needed to create, build, and test programs for that OS. It manages one or more files associated with a program, has its own integrated text editor, can invoke the compiler and present its results, and can execute the compiled program. The programmer typically never leaves this environment while developing. The IDE often streamlines the production of a standalone working program.
There are many such IDEs – Microsoft's Windows-only Visual Studio, Microsoft's multi-platform Visual Studio Code, Apple's Xcode for macOS and other Apple hardware platforms, Eclipse Foundation's Eclipse, and Oracle's Netbeans, to name a few. Each of these IDEs is able to develop programs in a variety of languages. Nearly all of the programs used in this book were developed using a simple IDE named CodeRunner for macOS.
We willnotuse an IDE for learning C. In fact, at this stage of your learning, it is not advisedfor several reasons. First, learning and using an IDE can be a daunting learning task in and of itself. This task can and should be put off until you have more experience with each of the individual parts of the program development cycle. IDEs, while they have common functions, are sometimes implemented in vastly different ways with far too many different features to explore. Learn C first; you can learn an IDE for your desiredenvironmentlater.
