Introduction

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Before you can begin to create even simple programs you have to understand the program creation process and how to execute the process on your computer using a set of software development tools.

The kind of computer you use matters less than your choice of development tools. However, your choice of hardware platform dictates your choice of software development tools. For example, a mainframe programmer might be limited to the development tools that came with the machine but a programmer using an IBM PC^™ or related computer can choose from a staggering array of development tool packages.

In this chapter I will teach you the steps of the program creation process and show you how these steps are combined in an integrated development environment (IDE). I will then show you how to use two popular IDE packages and a set of UNIX tools to write your programs.

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