Developer Guide: How-to install & configure IDEs for development on Ubuntu

[rkratky]

Context

Ubuntu Desktop for developers is a new documentation set that is geared towards application developers who wish to use Ubuntu Desktop as their development platform. It is not meant for developers who participate in the development of the Ubuntu distribution itself (nothing is stopping them from using the guidance the docs provide, but their use case is not what informs the strategy for the content of this docs set).

The Dev Guide focuses on work with six toolchains:

• GCC
• Python
• Java
• .NET
• Rust
• Golang

The basic structure of the docs set consists of two main parts:

• Generic guidance about Ubuntu Desktop installation and set up specifics for developers
• Toolchain-specific guidance on how to install and start using the indiv. toolchains and related tooling

Task

Develop docs to populate the generic-guidance part of the docs set, i.e., the non-toolchain-specific parts of the Developer Guide. There are three parts to this:

• set up and installation
• version control
• IDEs

This task is about the 3rd part: How-to install & configure IDEs for development on Ubuntu.

A high-level how-to guide (see Diataxis how-to and/or talk to @rkratky) on installing and setting up IDEs (and popular text editors for development, incl. Vim & Emacs) on Ubuntu Desktop for app development.

This SHOULD NOT duplicate any existing (up-to-date) documentation on general installation. Links (or points in prerequisites) should be provided to this generic installation content (#135).

The gist of this article should be:

• Basic intro into IDEs on Ubuntu (+ code editor vs IDE); emphasis on open-source apps & those avail. from default repos
• Pointers to offic. docs on installing selected IDEs:
  • VS Code
  • Codium
  • IntelliJ IDEA + some offshoots (CLion, GoLand, PyCharm, Rider, RustRover)
  • Eclipse
  • NetBeans
• Git (and GitHub/GitLab) integration (pointers to offic. docs)
• Launchpad considerations

IMPORTANT: This article will inevitable feature a number of product and application names. Take care to:

• Use correct product/app naming
• Include TM (trademark) symbols if/where required

This article SHOULD NOT go into details about the use of the specific IDEs, unless there are concrete Ubuntu-related caveats that need mentioning. Hand off to offic. docs (extensive link list at the end) is preferred.

Reference

• Diataxis: How-to guides
• GitHub: ubuntu-for-developers-docs

Note: This docs set is not yet published because it's still largely incomplete. If you decide to work on this issue, I will provide you with access details to be able to see the non-public version.

[davidekete]

Hi @rkratky, I'd like to work on this.