Development Environments
8Integrated development environments
An integrated development environment (IDE) sounds far more complicated than it is,
as it simply serves as a way for a developer to talk to the machine and write code for an
application. It usually consists of three components, a source code editor, build automation
tools, and a debugger. The IDEs we'll cover in this chapter provide all three.
Using UnCodeX
Now that we know what IDEs are and how they work, how do we use the code provided
by Epic? It's there for the taking, but we need an easy way to sift through it. That's where
UnCodeX comes in. Let's take a closer look.
UnCodeX is an open source tool which provides an easy interface to browse through the
code, analyzes UnrealScript, and is capable of producing a Javadoc like documentation
of the source code.
Every good programmer knows their source material. That doesn't mean you need to know
the engine inside out, but at least take some time to understand where your most important
classes are extending from, and what's available to you. There's no sense in reinventing the
wheel if someone has done it for you already, right?
Getting ready
The first thing we'll need to do is acquire a copy of it for ourselves. Let's head over to
http://sourceforge.net/projects/uncodex/ and download it.
Once you have it downloaded and installed, open it up. Personally, I keep it pinned to my
taskbar as it is a constant point of reference for my work that I find myself accessing day
in and day out, along with my other Unreal tools.