IDE is a
TLA which commonly stands for one of two things:
1. An
Integrated Development Environment, which is basically a text
editor designed for source code and with a
compiler,
debugger, and other
sweet stuff built in. Almost all
programming languages are available as
IDEs, specifically on the
x86 platform. The popularity of
Windows and the concept of a
computer on every
desktop has increased
demand for easy-to-use
programming utilities. Some commonly used
IDEs today are
Visual Works,
Delphi and
JBuilder.
2.
Integrated Drive Electronics, the most commonly used hard disk
interface on the
x86. Currently replacing
SCSI as the
interface of choice even for very
high-end systems.
IDE used to be
mind-numbingy slow and even
today cannot be
daisy-chained.
UDMA-66 and
UDMA-100 have rectified the speed problem, and the incredibly low
price of
disks and
RAID cards for
IDE means you can now afford to buy two
IDE disks instead of one
SCSI disk, save
money and gain
speed.