A text editor that is specialized for writing software. A source code editor may be a stand-alone program or part of an integrated development environment (IDE). They make writing and reading the source code easier by differentiating the elements and routines so programmers can more easily look at their code. Using a regular text editor or word processor, large programs would be more cumbersome to review at a later date. See
integrated development environment,
hex editor,
Notepad++ and
text editor.
Source Code Editors Know the Code
Source code editors identify the parts of programming statements. In this snippet of PHP code from this encyclopedia's website, the UltraEdit text editor from IDM Computer Solutions differentiates elements by displaying them in colors.