editing scripts on a mac

[Steve Holden]

I am teaching someone Python by email, and part of our conversation
recently ran as follows:

him> How do I save a script and run it?

me > Do you have a text editor? If so, edit the script in that, then
save it
me > in your home directory (the place you can see when you open the
terminal

him> I do not have a text editor, but here are the answers to
him> questions 1-5.

Now, frankly, I don't think this answer is correct, since I know OS X is
a UNIX derivative, but I am loathe to involve a programming noob with vi
or something similar. So I wondered if one of the c.l.py mac users could
give brief instructions for firing up a visual text editor of some sort
and saving a file somewhere it can easily be accessed from a terminal
window (which I presume starts up in his home directory).

regards
Steve

 

[Aahz]

Now, frankly, I don't think this answer is correct, since I know OS X is
a UNIX derivative, but I am loathe to involve a programming noob with vi
or something similar. So I wondered if one of the c.l.py mac users could
give brief instructions for firing up a visual text editor of some sort
and saving a file somewhere it can easily be accessed from a terminal
window (which I presume starts up in his home directory).

What's wrong with IDLE?
--
Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"...string iteration isn't about treating strings as sequences of strings,
it's about treating strings as sequences of characters. The fact that
characters are also strings is the reason we have problems, but characters
are strings for other good reasons." --Aahz

 

[Adam Atlas]

Now, frankly, I don't think this answer is correct, since I know OS X is
a UNIX derivative, but I am loathe to involve a programming noob with vi
or something similar. So I wondered if one of the c.l.py mac users could
give brief instructions for firing up a visual text editor of some sort
and saving a file somewhere it can easily be accessed from a terminal
window (which I presume starts up in his home directory).

I strongly recommend TextMate (http://www.macromates.com/). It's not
free, but it rocks.

There's also TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/
textwrangler/), a free (as in beer) lite version of BBEdit, the most
venerable Mac text editor. I used to use BBEdit; it's quite excellent,
though TextMate feels a bit more modern and OS X-like.