IDE and visual interfaces

If you are a programmer that comes from the Windows world, you may be used to code in a visual interface or an IDE. Coding in a text editor and then going to the shell to compile may be the traditional way of Unix and Linux users, but it may not be what you are looking for.

You can use a visual interface in Linux too. Searching for "visual" or "IDE" at http://www.freshmeat.net will return a few programs available to you. But there may be a much better way.

The purpose of a visual interface is to make coding more efficient. There are many so-called programmer editors. These are text editors so powerful that you can do everything with them. This includes editing multiple files, compiling and even debugging your program.

One of them is emacs, available from the GNU project. It is so powerful that it enables you to edit text, compile, read mail, newsgroups, and even browse the Web. It may seem far more complex than your usual Windows visual editor, but it may prove really interesting in the end.