Why Blockchain IDE is important in Blockchain Development

Blockchain has come a long way since its mainstream breakthrough around five years back and is gradually penetrating through various Internet-based models and algorithms, especially crypto-currencies. It is due Blockchain’s high-grade security and stability that it is widely used by crypto-currency developers and is even being researched upon to be collaborating with the Internet of Things (IoT) to make devices “Smarter.”

Also, Blockchain in IoT is also slowly finding a wider range of applications with Integrated Development Environments (IDE). I have previously written multiple posts about Blockchain and its wide range of developmental application, and today I’m going to explain how cloud-based IDE play a critical role in Developing environments of Blockchain and How IBM Cloud is worth for it. But before that, let me give you a brief outline of what are blockchain developer tutorial and IDE.

Blockchain, as I have explained in previous articles, is a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all crypto-currency transactions. IBM developed this service from the last couple of years. The company has been successful in employing Blockchain with various integrated frameworks and models like IBM Hyperledger and Cloud models.

The Blockchain is very popular for smart contracts. All those contracts can run on a kind of decentralized application within the network. This included buyers and sellers agreement using lines of code.

Integrated Development Environments (IDE)

IDE is a handy tool specially designed to provide simplicity to all computer programmers who are working on many complex projects. This will help to ease operation of programming & delivery of the product lifecycle.

An IDE usually consists of three principal elements:

• Source code editor
• Build automation tools
• Debugger.

Most modern IDEs also have intelligent code completion.
Softbench was one of the first IDEs with a plug-in concept released in 1989. This tool was developed on the UNIX operating system, UNIX tools, and the X Window System. It was the early adoption of some of the IDE ideas that are common today in popular IDEs like Visual Studio and Eclipse.

Advantages of using IDEs for Blockchain Developer Skills

Here are the top advantages or reasons as to why you should consider using IDE for developing environments of Blockchain.

Learner-friendly experience

The major use of IDE's is to help programmers to do theri task quickly and efficient way by following standards of programming. Beginners with IDE don’t need to learn command compiles, builds, executes, etc. They click here and there, and things work. The learning curve is smooth and user-friendly.

Autocomplete

Numerous well developed IDE platforms offer auto-completion Code Recommenders, which analyze your code and recommends you the best method based on the usage pattern detected in your code.

Syntax highlighting

Syntax highlighting is a key element of an IDE that can show both the language keywords and the syntax errors with visually distinct colors and font effects.

Debugging

Debugging is the most important tool for any developer and involves executing the application step by step while being able to watch variables current value, stack trace, inspect memory status, and other features in a single screen.

Visual Programming

This feature allows users to create new applications by moving programming, building blocks, or code nodes to create flowcharts or structure diagrams. These charts and diagrams are compiled or interpreted.

Increased Efficiency

Coding is a tedious task, especially for those who are not into the roots of the web and IT. However, digging employing IDEs allows for faster and hassle-free coding with less effort.

Collaboration

IDE also allows for smooth and efficient collaboration among a group of programmers, ensuring that they can easily work together within an IDE.

Project Management

With the added advantages of efficient collaboration and effective project management come the easy and productive management of projects and program resources are easy.

Refactoring and performance hints

Most IDE support fast code refactoring and out of the box templates. Additional features also include code clean up when there are unreachable codes or unused variables and also performance hints.

Choosing a reliable IDE platform

IDEs are designed to present a single program in which all development is done which ultimately helps maximize programmer productivity by providing tight-knit components with similar user interfaces.

Typical features of a well-functioning IDE platform include authoring, modifying, compiling, deploying and debugging software. However, it is extremely important to choose a reliable and equally powerful IDE platform for your blockchain project. An IDE usually consists of the following elements & we can see something more in IBM blockchain essentials

• A compiler
• An interpreter
• A source code editor
• A build automation tools
• A debugger

Most modern IDEs that are available in the market today have intelligent code completion. Some IDEs contain a compiler, interpreter, or sometimes both, such as NetBeans and Eclipse. Others platforms like SharpDevelop and Lazarus don’t have these.

You may find some selective IDE's for selective programing language but there are ample amount of multilingual supportive IDE's in the market like eClipse. Most of these IDEs are graphical and text-based IDEs like Turbo Pascal which commonly use function keys or hotkeys to execute frequently used commands or macros.

IBM Cloud and IDE

IBM, as mentioned in my previous articles, is the most actively experimenting IT company in the field of Blockchain. Over the past couple of years, IBM has been simultaneously researching on developing using Blockchain with IoT and now IDE. Blockchain application developer mostly prefers IDE which has longterm usability and hence IBM cloud is creating that trust.

Today teams can create, manage, test and deploy applications seamlessly to the IBM cloud using Cloud Continuous Delivery and open toolchains. Blockchain web developer can use such kind of tools easily. You can write code on your desktop and deploy it using the command line. Furthermore, you can even use the Web IDE to write code and deploy in the cloud. That is one reason why cloud-based IDE is becoming the “Next big thing.”

The cloud-based Web IDE provides just the right features and tools you need to create great code right in your browser. You can see the pipeline redeploy your app by using the Git function of the Web IDE to push your changes.

Once you create a toolchain from a standard template, the Web IDE toolchain integration is added automatically. You can even easily add the integration if it is not already part of your toolchain, using the Add a Tool button. Then click on the Orion tile once it is part of your toolchain, to start writing code!