How to install & configure IDE – JetBrains Academy Help Center

Why do I need an IDE?

IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a tool used by many professional programmers to write code. Of course, you could use an online code editor, notepad app, or even a physical piece of paper, but IDEs have extra features that help developers work more efficiently and simply make their life a lot easier. The most noteworthy of them are code highlight, syntax validation, auto code formatting, auto-competition, and the ability to debug your code from inside the IDE.

It is a very simple tool that every developer knows how to use (well, most of them, anyway). That's why the later stages of most of our projects will make you use an IDE to submit your code (although this feature also exists as an option in some other problems and project stages).

There are a lot of different kinds of IDEs, but we will ask you to install JetBrains IDE to submit your code to JetBrains Academy. IntelliJ IDEA Edu and PyCharm Edu are special editions that already include the EduTools Plugin. You will use IDE to write your code, check your solutions, and synchronize them with our website. You need the EduTools plugin enabled to open our problems and projects inside IDE.

Choose a language you want to start learning and read the corresponding instructions to download and install an appropriate IDE.