Integrated development environments (IDEs) are made up of a number of integrated software tools that support one or more general software process activities such as requirements, design or programming.
Programming environments are the most mature IDEs and environments are now available for many different programming languages such as Java, Python, Ruby, etc. Programming environments generally include an integrated program editor, compiler and debugging environment. From within this environment, the editor maintains the syntax of the program and the user can seamlessly compile and debug the program.
IDEs are also available for requirements engineering and for the UML.
The open-source ECLIPSE environment is a framework for building IDEs and provides a basis for linking separately written tools. Therefore, an instance of an ECLIPSE environment might include tools for creating system models using UML and programming tools (in Java, say) to develop these models into executable programs. Many different instances of ECLIPSE, geared towards different application domains, are now available.