interactive development environment
integrated development environment

    (IDE, integrated development environment)
   A system for supporting the process of writing software.  Such
   a system may include a syntax-directed editor, graphical
   tools for program entry, and integrated support for compiling
   and running the program and relating compilation errors back
   to the source.

   Such systems are typically both interactive and integrated,
   hence the ambiguous acronym.  They are interactive in that the
   developer can view and alter the execution of the program at
   the level of statements and variables.  They are integrated in
   that, partly to support the above interaction, the source code
   editor and the execution environment are tightly coupled,
   e.g. allowing the developer to see which line of source code
   is about to be executed and the current values of any
   variables it refers to.

   Examples include Visual C++ and Visual Basic.

   (2002-09-21)