I am fairly new to programming and for my cs class i need to run individual programs. they don’t need to interact with anything else, so i am trying to just run the file I’m currently on but Kate just greys out the option. I really want to avoid using projects if i can because they’re just extra effort for no reason when I only need to run a single file. I did try using one, but Kate doesn’t have a new project button for some reason and i had some trouble with Cmake.
I’m aware that these are actually pretty basic things, but I can’t find anything online that actually explains how to use Kate at all. I would try using something else, but every IDE seems to have this same issue where by default it can’t run code and it has no documentation of any kind regarding actually running code, so i’ll just stick with the one that came with my distro.
also as a bonus question, why does every IDE seem to require you to configure every single option before it can run code and why do they all seem to discourage doing anything less than making an entire app?
VSCode is absolutely an IDE. It is full of IDE features. The idea that it isn’t an IDE is one of those weird memes that won’t die, like people saying “an historic occasion”.
Vscode is an IDE, but only after I spent 15 minutes finding and selecting the appropriate java extensions and ensuring that my Linux system had Java installed.
But what was a 15 minute process to me, could easily be a 2 hour struggle to someone who is setting up a development environment for the first time and “just wants autocomplete and debugging”.
Vscode is a text editor, sorry…“code editor”. Like you so graciously called out in a later comment, MS even clarified that it’s not an IDE. If VSCode is an IDE then so is VIM or Sublime Text or Notepad++, which of course is nonsense. IDE doesn’t just mean integrated development environment, it means it was meant to be used that way. Just because I turned my lawnmower into something that looks like an F1 race car doesn’t mean it’s an F1 race car.
You’re clearly aware of all of the arguments why VS code isn’t an IDE so it’s pointless to have this argument, but you seem to think that just because something looks like an IDE means it is, which is just categorically false.
MS even clarified that it’s not an IDE
Microsoft doesn’t get to define what an IDE is. Also… I actually reread what they said and the implicitly say it is an IDE (and a “code editor” which is a fairly meaningless term):
Visual Studio Code is a streamlined code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running, and version control. It aims to provide just the tools a developer needs for a quick code-build-debug cycle and leaves more complex workflows to fuller featured IDEs, such as Visual Studio IDE.
“to fuller featured IDEs”, not “to IDEs”.
They didn’t have that originally, they added it because of people like you that are arguing that it’s an IDE when it clearly isn’t.
Code editor makes perfect sense. It’s a text editor with code highlighting, fast search, and an understanding of different languages, oftentimes with command windows to make working with text easier. Clearly distinct from something like notepad, that only has the ability to edit text and nothing else.
Platformio is an IDE based on VSCode.
VSCode CAN be an IDE.
But it isn’t natively an IDE
I would say that for something to be an IDE it has to be meant to be an IDE. Clearly Microsoft didn’t intend for it to be an IDE or they would have called it that. Just because you can build something that looks and performs like an F1 race car in your garage out of an old lawnmower or ford Taurus or whatever doesn’t make it an F1 car. Unless it’s racing at Monaco in an F1 race, it ain’t an F1 car. Same thing with VS Code. It’s a code editor, like Sublime or vim.
Honestly interested what makes something not an IDE but can be one? The fact that it requires plugins to turn it into an IDE?
Does that mean Eclipse is not an IDE either, since it requires either JDT or CDT to be anywhere near useful?
I’m interested in that too, where’s the line and how much does it matter?
To me, something like visual studio is an ide.
Out of the box it can run and debug c# programs. I can step through line by line, I can add breakpoints, I can watch variables.
It is a great experience for developing c#.
To get vscode to do that requires a lot of configuration.
Sometimes all that config is done by only 1 plugin.
The fact that there are really well made plugins for so many different languages and frameworks is vscodes power. I don’t just get a js/ts/node/deno ide, but it can be super tailored to Vue/react/svelte/quasar/nuxt/next/whatever.
All while in a familiar editor, and without having to install another program.
That’s what I mean by vscode not being an IDE.
Vscode has the ability to be an IDE, but it’s 3rd parties that actually do the work to achieve this.
