Meaning & use
development environment
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountablecomputing
the set of programs and settings a programmer uses to write, test, and fix software.
Grammar: Countable: you can say a development environment or several development environments.
Patterns
- set up a development environment
- work in a development environment
- a development environment for something
New staff get a laptop with a development environment already installed.
She spent the morning setting up a development environment for the mobile app.
Our development environment is separate from the live system, so mistakes there are harmless.
nouncountablecomputing
a copy of a system used only for building and testing code before it goes live.
Grammar: Countable and often used with the: the development environment.
Patterns
- test something in a development environment
- a development environment and a production environment
Please test the new login page in the development environment first.
The bug only appears in the development environment, not on the live site.
They keep three development environments: one for each team.
Word forms
| plural | development environments |
|---|
Common combinations
- set up a development environment
- It took him a whole day to set up a development environment on the new machine.
- an integrated development environment
- An integrated development environment combines an editor, a compiler, and a debugger.
- a local development environment
- She runs a local development environment on her laptop so she can work offline.
- a development environment for
- They built a development environment for testing payment code safely.
- test in a development environment
- Always test in a development environment before you touch the live server.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sandbox
- A sandbox is an isolated space for trying things out; a development environment is the whole toolkit and setup a programmer works in.
- test environment
- A test environment is used mainly for checking finished code, while a development environment is where the code is written and first run.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: development environment or development?
development environment vs development
Development is the general process or the land and buildings on a site; a development environment is the specific computing setup.
Practice
Before releasing the update, the team ran it in a ______ to make sure nothing broke.
Choose one answer.
"Development environment" is the countable noun phrase for the testing setup, and it fits after "a". "Development" alone is the general process, and "developer" means a person, so neither names the place where code is tested.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “development environment”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.