In this article by Daniel Blair, the author of the book Learning Banana Pi, you are going to learn about some editors and the programming languages that are available on the Pi and Linux. These tools will help you write the code that will interact with the hardware through GPIO and on the Pi as a server.
(For more resources related to this topic, see here.)
Choosing your editor
There are many different integrated development environments (generally abbreviated as IDEs) to choose from on Linux. When working on the Banana Pi, you’re limited to the software that will run on an ARM-based CPU. Hence, options such as Sublime Text are not available. Some options that you may be familiar with are available for general purpose code editing. Some tools are available for the command line, while others are GUI tools.
So, depending on whether you have a monitor or not, you will want to choose an appropriate tool. The following screenshot shows some JavaScript being edited via nano on the command line:
Command-line editors
The command line is a powerful tool. If you master it, you will rarely need to leave it. There are several editors available for the command line. There has been an ongoing war between the users of two editors: GNU Emacs and Vim. There are many editors like nano (which is my preference), but the war tends to be between the two aforementioned editors.
The Emacs editor
This is my least favorite command-line editor (just my preference). Emacs is a GNU-flavored editor for the command line. It is often installed by default, but you can easily install it if it is missing by running a quick command, as follows:
sudo apt-get install emacs
Now, you can edit a file via the CLI by using the following code:
emacs <command-line arguments> <your file>
The preceding code will open the file in Emacs for you to edit. You can also use this to create new files. You can save and close the editor with a couple of key combinations:
- Ctrl + X and Ctrl + S
- Ctrl + X and Ctrl + C
Thus, your document will be saved and closed.
The Vim editor
Vim is actually an extension of Vi, and it is functionally the same thing. Vim is a fine editor. Many won’t personally go out of their way to not use it. However, people do find it a bit difficult to remember all the commands. If you do get good at it, though, you can code very quickly. You can install Vim with the command line:
sudo apt-get install vim
Also, there is a GUI version available that allows interaction with the mouse; this is functionally the same program as the Vim command line. You don’t have to be confined to the terminal window. You can install it with an identical command:
sudo apt-get install vim-gnome
You can edit files easily with Vim via the command line for both Vim and Vim-Gnome, as follows:
vim <your file> gvim <your file>
The gnome version will open the file in a window There is a handy tutorial that you can use to learn the commands of Vim. You can run the tutorial with the help of the following command:
vimtutor
This tutorial will teach you how to run this editor, which is awesome because the commands can be a bit complicated at first. The following screenshot shows Vim editing the file that we used earlier:
The nano editor
The nano editor is my favorite editor for the command line. This is probably because it was the first editor that I was exposed to when I started to learn Linux and experiment with the servers and eventually, the Raspberry Pi and Banana Pi. The nano editor is generally considered the easiest to use and is installed by default on the Banana Pi images. If, for some reason, you need to install it, you can get it quickly with the help of the following command:
sudo apt-get install nano
The editor is easy to use. It comes with several commands that you will use frequently. To save and close the editor, use the following key combinations:
- Ctrl + O
- Ctrl + X
You can get help at any time by pressing Ctrl + G.
Graphic editors
With the exception of gVim, all the editors we just talked about live on the command line. If you are more accustomed to graphical tools, you may be more comfortable with a full-featured IDE. There are a couple of choices in this regard that you may be familiar with.
These tools are a little heavier than the command-line tools because you will need to not only run the software, but also render the window. This is not as much of a big deal on the Banana Pi as it is on the Raspberry Pi, because we have more RAM to play with. However, if you have a lot of programs running already, it might cause some performance issues.
Eclipse
Eclipse is a very popular IDE that is available for everything. You can use it to develop all kinds of systems and use all kinds of programming languages. This is a tool that can be used to do professional development. There are a lot of plugins available in this IDE. It is also used to develop apps for Android (although Android Studio is also available now).
Eclipse is written in Java. Hence, in order to make it work, you will require a Java Runtime Environment. The Banana Pi should come equipped with the Java development and runtime environments. If this is not the case, they are not difficult to install. In order to grab the proper version of Eclipse and avoid browsing all the specific versions on the website, you can just install it via the command line by entering the following code:
sudo apt-get install eclipse
Once Eclipse is installed, you will find it in the application menu under programming tools. The following screenshot shows the Eclipse IDE running
on the Banana Pi:
The Geany IDE
Geany is a lighter weight IDE than Eclipse although the former is not quite fully featured. It is a clean UI that can be customized and used to write a lot of different programming languages. Geany was one of the first IDEs I ever used when first exploring Linux when I was a kid.
Geany does not come preinstalled on the Banana Pi images, but it is easy to get via the command line:
sudo apt-get install geany
Depending on what you plan to do code-wise on the Banana Pi, Geany may be your best bet. It is GUI-based and offers quite a bit of functionality. However, it is a lot faster to load than Eclipse. It may seem familiar for Windows users, and they might find it easier to operate since it resembles Windows software. The following screenshot shows Geany on Linux:
Both of these editors, Geany and Eclipse, are not specific to a particular programming language, but they both are slightly better for certain languages. Geany tends to be better for web languages such as HTML, PHP, JavaScript, and CSS, while Eclipse tends to be better for compiled languages such as C++, Go, and Java as well as PHP and Ruby with plugins.
If you plan to write scripts or languages that are intended to be run from the command line such as Bash, Ruby, or Python, you may want to stick to the command line and use an editor such as Vim or nano. It is worth your time to play around with the editors and find your preferences.
Web IDEs
In addition to the command line and GUI editors, there are a couple of web-based IDEs. These essentially turn your Pi into a code server, which allows you to run and even execute certain types of code on an IDE written in web languages. These IDEs are great for learning code, but they are not really replacements for the solutions that were listed previously.
Google Coder
Google Coder is an educational web IDE that was released as an open source project by Google for the Raspberry Pi. Although there is a readily available image for the Raspberry Pi, we can manually install it for the Banana Pi. The following screenshot shows the Google Coder’s interface:
The setup is fairly straightforward. We will clone the Git repo and install it with Node.js. If you don’t have Git and Node.js installed, you can install them with a quick command in the terminal, as follows:
sudo apt-get install nodejs npm git
Once it is installed, we can clone the coder repo by using the following code:
git clone https://github.com/googlecreativelab/coder
After it is cloned, we will move into the directory and install it with the help of the following code:
cd ~/coder/coder-base/ npm install
It may take several minutes to install, even on the Banana Pi. Next, we will edit the config.js file, which will be used to configure the ports and IP addresses.
nano config.js
The preceding code will reveal the contents of the file. Change the top values to match the following:
exports.listenIP = '127.0.0.1'; exports.listenPort = '8081'; exports.httpListenPort = '8080'; exports.cacheApps = true; exports.httpVisiblePort = '8080'; exports.httpsVisiblePort = '8081';
After you change the settings you need, run a server by using Node.js:
nodejs server.js
You should now be able to connect to the Pi in a browser either on it or on another computer and use Coder. Coder is an educational tool with a lot of different built-in tutorials. You can use Coder to learn JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and jQuery.
Adafruit WebIDE
Adafruit has developed its own Web IDE, which is designed to run on the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone. Since we are using the Banana Pi, it will only run better. This IDE is designed to work with Ruby, Python, and JavaScript, to name a few. It includes a terminal via which you can send commands to the Pi from the browser. It is an interesting tool if you wish to learn how to code. The following screenshot shows the interface of the WebIDE:
The installation of WebIDE is very simple compared to that of Google Coder,
which took several steps. We will just run one command:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adafruit/Adafruit-WebIDE/alpha/scripts/install.sh | sudo sh
After a few minutes, you will see an output that indicates that the server is starting. You will be able to access the IDE just like Google Coder—through a browser from another computer or from itself. It should be noted that you will be required to create a free Bit Bucket account to use this software.
Summary
In this article, we explored several different programming languages, command-line tools, graphical editors, and even some web IDEs. These tools are valuable for all kinds of projects that you may be working on.
Resources for Article:
Further resources on this subject:
- Prototyping Arduino Projects using Python [article]
- Raspberry Pi and 1-Wire [article]
- The Raspberry Pi and Raspbian [article]