Kate vs GCC

Has a terminal that can sync to the location of your document, letting you compile or run your program quickly or run quick commands, all without leaving the editor.

Kate allows you to make projects to simplify the organisation of your code. This brings in additional organization of an IDE without the overhead.

Kate is pretty fast and lightweight. This helps it with it's start up speed.

Kate supports syntax highlighting for over 180 languages, from Assembler to Zsh.

Kate uses KDE's input and output libraries to read and write files, allowing seamless integration with FTP, SMB, SFTP, and many other protocols.

Lots of plugins allow Kate to expand or shrink based on your needs. It includes GDB integration, XML completion, and symbol viewing to speed up programming.

Notepads alternative (for the Windows users).

Kate has a vi entry mode.

GCC was first released in 1987 when it was called the GNU C Compiler, a couple of months after it was released it was extended to support C++ too. Nowadays it supports other languages than C or C++.

Having been in use and constant development for more than 20 years it has reached a state of maturity and stability. The fact that it's so old also means that there are countless resources out there for people who want to use it.

GCC is the default compiler on several systems. Most of the time people have it installed on their machine without even knowing it's there.

Since it's so old and very popular it has been ported to almost any architecture imaginable. This means that it's probably compatible with even the most obscure and unheard hardware.