Hello JavaScript - JavaScript: Novice to Ninja - page 8

A Ninja Programming Environment
A ninja needs very little to program JavaScript. All one needs is a text editor and a web
browser such as Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari, or Chrome.
JavaScript Version
We'll be using version 5 of ECMAScript in this topic and assume that you are using a mod-
ern browser (try to update to the latest version of whichever is your favorite). You can't
always rely on users to have the latest version, though, so we'll also try to point out when
some of the code will fail to work in older browsers.
Text Editors
If you are using Windows, Notepad will work just fine. If you find it a bit too basic, you
might want to try Notepad++ , E Text Editor , UltraEdit , or Sublime Text .
If you are using a Mac, options include the built-in TextEdit, Text Wrangler , TextMate , or
Atom text editor . You could also use Sublime Text .
If you are using Linux, you'll be fine with the built-in text editor (such as Gedit, Genie,
Kate, Vim, or Emacs), or you could also use E Text Editor or Sublime Text .
You can also consider an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) such as Eclipse , Coda ,
NetBeans , or the online Cloud 9 .
Another interesting option is Brackets , which is free, cross-platform, and even written in
JavaScript!
Browser Console
Nearly every browser can run JavaScript and most modern browsers now include a
JavaScript console that can be used to run snippets of JavaScript code. Here are some in-
structions on how to launch a JavaScript console in some of the more popular browsers: