One of the cool things about Javascript is that it is easy to run the program: all you need is a web browser.
In terms of the tools for writing Javascript, however, its a bit more open (since the runtime environment isn’t the programming environment).
At a basic level, all you need is a text editor to create your HTML pages and script files. However, as you try to do non-trivial things, you will quickly want to have better tools. For example, a text-editor that really helps you (with syntax highlighting and checking, and tooltips, and …) and a debugger.
The web browsers (especially Chrome) have some debugging and profiling support built in. Firefox gets better debugging support through plugins (like Firebug). It’s probably a good idea to get familiar with a debugger sooner rather than later. Learn to use it on simple programs, so you’re ready to find the hard bugs in your complicated programs.
There are a zillion text editors, IDEs, and other Javascript programming tools out there. If you find one that you think is good enough to recommend, please tell us about it in a comment in this post.
Notepad++ is a remarkably lightweight-yet-complete text editor that is javascript/html aware, and can connect to your web browser. Recommended as an easy tool for script editing.
If you’re an Eclipse user, there is an Eclipse environment for web development (including Javascript) called “Aptana.” It’s a pretty huge beast, but the Javascript editor and connection with the in-browser debugger is pretty cool. It’s pretty good at handling the various pieces you end up making in order to make something in Javascript (the scripts, the HTML, the CSS, …)
Please let us know what tools you find useful for Javascript programming and doing Project 1!
Comments on this entry are closed.