Looking for a good Python environment

[ram.rachum]

Hey, I'm looking for a good Python environment. That is, at least an
editor and a debugger, and it should run on Windows. Does anyone have
any idea?

 

[Jeff]

Pida is a nice looking IDE for Python, written in Python with GTK.
Emacs is decent, Eclipse has support, too. SciTE is a nice editor if
you are looking for something minimal (such as no debugger).

 

[Jens]

Just wrote a mini "review" of three Python code editors on my blog...

http://pyminer.blogspot.com/2007/11/python-code-editors.html

I use PSPad or Notepad++ for quick editing, and Komodo Edit 4.2 for
longer sessions. Komodo Edit is the only one with code completion - a
very nice feature. You can pay $299 and get Komodo Edit, which has a
debugger.

I've only used Eclipse for Java programming, but there's a Python plug-
in called PyDev - just haven't figured out how to install it :-(

 

[ram.rachum]

Just wrote a mini "review" of three Python code editors on my blog...

http://pyminer.blogspot.com/2007/11/python-code-editors.html

I use PSPad or Notepad++ for quick editing, and Komodo Edit 4.2 for
longer sessions. Komodo Edit is the only one with code completion - a
very nice feature. You can pay $299 and get Komodo Edit, which has a
debugger.

I've only used Eclipse for Java programming, but there's a Python plug-
in called PyDev - just haven't figured out how to install it :-(

Thanks Jeff and thanks Jen. I'll take a look at these editors to see
if they're good for me.

 

[jwelby]

Hey, I'm looking for a good Python environment. That is, at least an
editor and a debugger, and it should run on Windows. Does anyone have
any idea?

I currently use Python Scripter as a lightweight editor for Windows.

For project work I use Eclipse, which can be installed with PyDev and
other useful plug-ins already included if you choose a suitable
distribution of Easy Eclipse (http://www.easyeclipse.org/). There is a
distribution specifically for Python development, and also one for
LAMP, which includes a number of other components which will be of use
if you are developing for the web.

 

[ram.rachum]

I currently use Python Scripter as a lightweight editor for Windows.

For project work I use Eclipse, which can be installed with PyDev and
other useful plug-ins already included if you choose a suitable
distribution of Easy Eclipse (http://www.easyeclipse.org/). There is a
distribution specifically for Python development, and also one for
LAMP, which includes a number of other components which will be of use
if you are developing for the web.

Thanks jewlby, I'll check it out.

 

[Colin J. Williams]

I currently use Python Scripter as a lightweight editor for Windows.

Could you elaborate on "lightweight"
please? I find PyScripter to be a
powerful editor/debugger combination.

What functionality does Eclipse have
that PyScripter does not?


Colin W.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Gerhard_H=E4ring?=]

Hey, I'm looking for a good Python environment. That is, at least an
editor and a debugger, and it should run on Windows. Does anyone have
any idea?

I like ERIC. You can get it at
http://www.die-offenbachs.de/eric/eric4-download.html

Or just download and install PyQt4, which includes it:

http://www.riverbankcomputing.com/Downloads/PyQt4/GPL/PyQt-Py2.5-gpl-4.3.1-1.exe

There's also a list of Python IDEs on the Python wiki:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironments

-- Gerhard

 

[VSmirk]

I like ERIC. You can get it athttp://www.die-offenbachs.de/eric/eric4-download.html

Or just download and install PyQt4, which includes it:

http://www.riverbankcomputing.com/Downloads/PyQt4/GPL/PyQt-Py2.5-gpl-...

There's also a list of Python IDEs on the Python wiki:http://wiki.python.org/moin/IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironments

-- Gerhard

WingIDE all the way. After trying a number of deve environments, Wing
was the first I used that actually allowed me to be productive.

They offer a free version, but it's worth getting the professional
version, too.

http://www.wingide.com/

VSmirk

 

[Paul Rubin]

Could you elaborate on "lightweight" please? I find PyScripter to be a
powerful editor/debugger combination.

What functionality does Eclipse have that PyScripter does not?

While we're at it, do any of these debuggers implement a good way to
debug multi-threaded Python programs?

 

[PyScripter]

While we're at it, do any of these debuggers implement a good way to
debug multi-threaded Python programs?

PyScripter (http://pyscripter.googlepages.com) debugging is based on
the standard Python debugger bdb.py which does not currently support
multi-threaded debugging (only the main thread can be debugged). One
debugger with such support is Winpdb. PyScripter may integrate Winpdb
in the future. However PyScripter does support debugging of GUI (e.g.
Tkinter, WxPython) applications with remote debugging.

 

[jwelby]

jwelby wrote: ....

Could you elaborate on "lightweight"
please? I find PyScripter to be a
powerful editor/debugger combination.

What functionality does Eclipse have
that PyScripter does not?

Colin W.

This is a fair question. I didn't phrase my post too well.

I find PyScripter does pretty much everything I need in terms of doing
actual development for Python. My use of 'lightweight' is by no means
a criticism of PyScripter - it's more of a compliment, as it refers to
the relatively modest demands that it makes on my system compared with
Eclipse, which can be hog.

The main reason I have used Eclipse for larger, team based, projects
is for the source control plug-ins. Eclipse has plug-in support for
cvs and svn. PyScripter may have this too - perhaps I've missed it.
(I'm away from my Windows box at the moment, otherwise I would check).
Of course, there are other ways to implement source control without it
needing to be integrated in the IDE, so even this need not put off
anyone who wants to use PyScripter with source control.

Summary - unless you need the added flexibility offered by Eclipse
plug-ins, PyScripter is a great tool for developing with Python on
Windows.

 

[Paul Rudin]

This is a fair question. I didn't phrase my post too well.

I find PyScripter does pretty much everything I need in terms of doing
actual development for Python. My use of 'lightweight' is by no means
a criticism of PyScripter - it's more of a compliment, as it refers to
the relatively modest demands that it makes on my system compared with
Eclipse, which can be hog.

The main reason I have used Eclipse for larger, team based, projects
is for the source control plug-ins. Eclipse has plug-in support for
cvs and svn. PyScripter may have this too - perhaps I've missed it.
(I'm away from my Windows box at the moment, otherwise I would check).
Of course, there are other ways to implement source control without it
needing to be integrated in the IDE, so even this need not put off
anyone who wants to use PyScripter with source control.

Summary - unless you need the added flexibility offered by Eclipse
plug-ins, PyScripter is a great tool for developing with Python on
Windows.

I'm not sure if you count emacs as "lightweight" but it's certainly
less resource hungry than eclipse/pydev, and does have integrated
cvs/svn functionality.

 

[PyScripter]

PyScripter provides integrated version control, via TortoiseSVN or
TortoiseCVS and the File Explorer.

 

[Russell Warren]

While we're at it, do any of these debuggers implement a good way to

debug multi-threaded Python programs?

Wing now has multi-threaded debugging.

I'm a big Wing (pro) fan. To be fair, when I undertook my huge IDE
evaluation undertaking it was approx 2 years ago... at the time as far
as what I would consider to be a full featured professional IDE it was
IMO really only Wing and Komodo who could compete. The others were
left in the dust. Unfortunately both cost money, but it became clear
that at least in this instance you get what you pay for. Not a big
deal for me because as far as professional development costs the cost
is ridiculously low and I use it professionally, but I could see
balking at the cost if strictly a hobbiest... although I would pay as
I'd be lost without my Wing I think. At the time, I much preferred
Wing to Komodo, but haven't tried Komodo more than sparingly since
then. My bet is that the situation would still be similar since Wing
has done nothing but get better over time. The support crew at Wing
are great, too... the mailing list is excellent and the Wing
developers typically respond very quickly to any support requests, and
even feature requests (I've had a few things added due to the mailing
list).

The biggest missing feature in Wing at the moment is integrating GUI
development. If you are into that, you may want to look elsewhere.
Any GUI stuff I do I use wxPython and after starting with a template
builder I just manually code the GUIs... painful at times, especially
when you just want to whip up something small, but I've gotten used to
it. Now that I type this, though, I think I'll go looking for what's
new! Maybe Boa is less buggy now? Hmm.

Prior to taking on my "find the ultimate IDE" quest I was using SPE
and it was free and quite decent, just not comparable to Wing.

http://pythonide.stani.be/

A quick look at the current state of SPE shows that it now has multi-
threaded debugging via WinPDB (what I used to use for debugging thread
issues). Interesting. Worth a look to see if it is integrated well.

 

[Paul Rubin]

Wing now has multi-threaded debugging.

Cool, is it windows-only? I'm using Linux.

A quick look at the current state of SPE shows that it now has multi-
threaded debugging via WinPDB (what I used to use for debugging thread
issues). Interesting. Worth a look to see if it is integrated well.

Same issue: this also sounds windows-specific. Thanks though.

 

[VSmirk]

Cool, is it windows-only? I'm using Linux.


Same issue: this also sounds windows-specific. Thanks though.

Wing is actually not windows-specific. They are Linux based as well,
and I believe a number of users are also MacOSX users.

The multi-threading debugging is a new feature with it's latest
release, but I have heard of no platform-specific issues related to it.

 

[Nir]

Cool, is it windows-only? I'm using Linux.


Same issue: this also sounds windows-specific. Thanks though.

Winpdb may sound to you as windows specific but it actually googles up
as platform independent. Those of you who dare work with a bunch of
separate development tools (oh, the terror, ugh...) instead of an IDE
will find it to be one of the best Python debuggers around.

 

[bramble]

The main reason I have used Eclipse for larger, team based, projects
is for the source control plug-ins. Eclipse has plug-in support for
cvs and svn. PyScripter may have this too - perhaps I've missed it.
(I'm away from my Windows box at the moment, otherwise I would check).
Of course, there are other ways to implement source control without it
needing to be integrated in the IDE, so even this need not put off
anyone who wants to use PyScripter with source control.

[snip]

I'm not sure if you count emacs as "lightweight" but it's certainly
less resource hungry than eclipse/pydev, and does have integrated
cvs/svn functionality.

I've never understood the desire for using your version control
software via your IDE. Why not just Alt-Tab over to your terminal
window and run the svn/bzr/hg/git/whatever commands yourself right
from there?

 

[cokofreedom]

The main reason I have used Eclipse for larger, team based, projects
is for the source control plug-ins. Eclipse has plug-in support for
cvs and svn. PyScripter may have this too - perhaps I've missed it.
(I'm away from my Windows box at the moment, otherwise I would check).
Of course, there are other ways to implement source control without it
needing to be integrated in the IDE, so even this need not put off
anyone who wants to use PyScripter with source control.
[snip]

I'm not sure if you count emacs as "lightweight" but it's certainly
less resource hungry than eclipse/pydev, and does have integrated
cvs/svn functionality.

I've never understood the desire for using your version control
software via your IDE. Why not just Alt-Tab over to your terminal
window and run the svn/bzr/hg/git/whatever commands yourself right
from there?

Because it saves you from having to do this. Some people prefer all
their commands in one place. And GUI wise it is often easier to click
the button showing all previouis versions, or comparing two of them
visually. I use Eclipse with ClearCase and it saves me a great deal of
trouble when dealing with 100+ files...