4.11. Text Editor

I use GNU Emacs[gnu-emacs] as a text editor while developing. Although its 30 year history gives it a user interface which is hard to pick up, its features are unrivalled, and unlike pure GUI text editors it works on a text console meaning files can be edited from any computer on the internet. KDE provides extremely useful scripts for Emacs which provide it with features I have come to depend upon such as variable name tab completion, jumping between equivalent methods in headers and body files and inserting debugging lines.

KDE does include an excellent integrated development environment called KDevelop[kdevelop]. I have tended to shy away from using KDevelop and IDEs in general because I find it is just as easy to use the individual tool as it is to use them in an integrated environment. KDevelop would be yet another tool that I would have to learn to use but offers little advantages compared to working without it. However, many other Umbrello developers successfully use KDevelop and other environments and it is important to keep the programme neutral of development environments to allow each developer to use the tools which they find most comfortable.