Osiris said:
Computers are favourite, although by no means mandatory.
This is why he thought you were being silly. I think it's funny.
Sorry for bringing the obvious, but sometimes it is actually the
source of discussions as that.
It seems all discussion going on began here. Now, every one knows IDE
stands for Integrated Development Environment, so keep in mind that it
does not need even to come all in one peace, being simple to install,
or anything like that. It's just we might have been used to call
certain software bundles as IDE, forgetting what this really means.
Windows is an IDE about as much as Linux is. The main difference, as
Richard pointed out, is that Microsoft, being the only legal barrier
of Windows, does not build windows packages that come ready as an IDE.
Plus, Osiris asked for a programming environment, not for a IDE, so
strictly he said it does not need to be integrated, what makes
Richard's point even more valid. But there's one big problem there.
Anyone can tell that what he really wants (and I think most reasonable
programmers also want) is an simple and light IDE, to be able to build
a program without having to worry too much about setting up the
environment for it and eventually testing and fixing the program as
needed (notice I'm not saying "compile" or "debug").
This is why most people who never spend enough time on Linux would not
think of it as such IDE, and I almost include myself in that, since I
think I'm still far from properly knowing any *nix. The thing is a
proper linux distribution could be that IDE, I just don't know if it
exists. But I know that, if it doesn't, you can build your own and
make a CD for it. What makes me believe that there must be few distros
around.
And as Keith, I also think this discussion would go better another
place. Maybe in comp.lang, although I'm not familiar with it (or any
usenet in fact). But it still kinda fits in here, since plain C still
is a big part of computers' soul today (and I still don't know why).
The Linux IDE comes complete with a multitude of tool choices for
specific tasks, and you can mix and match them according to your own
personal taste. Personally, for editing I use vim, even though EMACS
probably carries more kudos among the cognoscenti, for the simple
reason that vim can be used, in a pinch, with only one hand (leaving
the other free to hold a coffee mug), whereas EMACS needs at least
three.
Sometimes I wish I've had more experience with emacs or vim rather
than just knowing their names, potential and how old their interfaces
are.