Software development tools are exactly what they sound like – tools to develop software.
Software development tools often have many competitors on the market, and as a result, their processing speeds,
user interfaces and general use are constantly being updated. Examples of software development tools are shown below.
IDEs are integrated development environments. IDEs combine the features of many tools into one package,
making many programming tasks much easier. An IDE usually consists of:
• a source code editor
• a compiler and/or an interpreter
• build automation tools
• a debugger.
Examples of IDEs are Dr. Java and Anjuta.
They combine the features of many tools into one package, making many programming tasks much easier.
- Example of an IDE
CASE (Computer-aided software engineering) is the use of a computer-assisted method which organizes and controls the development of software.
Using CASE tools aid in showing what stage a project in progress is at and how it’s going along.
They can show the progress of a project by showing the design of a structure from a relational database graphically using an entity relationship diagram.
- Example of an entity relationship diagram
They can often include features such as macro-editing, reading and writing progress files,
creating and updating databases directly, printing resizable entity relationship diagrams, and more.
CASE tools compete with each other on the market by advertising how many tasks they can perform,
how quickly they can perform these task, how well the results of the tasks are presented, how easy they are to use and, of course, how much they cost.
One CASE tool that is quite popular is the CA ERwin Data Modeler Standard Edition mainly because of their simple,
visual interface alongside the plethora of other features they have.
A database management system (also known as a database manager) is a collection of programs that allow you to store,
modify, and take information from a database. It manages user and program requests so that users and other programs are don’t need to
understand where the data is physically located on storage media. Database management systems come in different forms,
from small systems that run on personal computers to huge systems that run on mainframes. One example of a database management system
that you may already be familiar with is Microsoft Office Access. Microsoft Access databases are popular because of their ability
to create a software system to manage a range of services quickly and easily.
Macros are normally used to assign a short string to a longer sequence of instructions.
Recording a macro is a great way to perform a one-time task, or to get things done quickly when you don't want to
mess with Vim script or mappings, or if you do not yet know how to do it more elegantly.