In this work, we introduce a novel approach to programming education - in-IDE courses implemented for IntelliJ-based IDEs via the JetBrains Academy Plugin. The primary objective of this approach is to address the challenge of familiarizing students with industrial technologies by moving all theory and practical materials to a professional IDE. This approach allows students to immediately use modern industrial tools as they are fully integrated into the learning process. We have already applied this approach in over 40 courses, and it successfully educates students across diverse topics such as Plugin Development, Algorithms, Data Analysis, and Language mastery in various programming languages, including Kotlin, Java, C++, and Python. Along with the paper, we are providing the community not only with a new way of learning and a set of ready-made courses but also a collection of helpful resources to assist educators in getting started with the plugin. Finally, we describe in detail an IDE plugin development course that demonstrates how the in-IDE approach covers complex topics easily.
Attila Szatmári Szegedi Tudományegyetem, Qusay Idrees Sarhan Department of Software Engineering, University of Szeged, Péter Attila Soha Department of Software Engineering, University of Szeged, Gergő Balogh Department of Software Engineering, University of Szeged, Árpád Beszédes Department of Software Engineering, University of Szeged
Niklas Krieger Institute of Software Engineering, University of Stuttgart, Sandro Speth Institute of Software Engineering, University of Stuttgart, Steffen Becker University of Stuttgart
Tim Kräuter Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Patrick Stünkel Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Adrian Rutle Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Yngve Lamo Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
