Ranting about the state of Python IDEs for Windows

C

Carlos Ribeiro

Oh well. A mailing list is not the most appropriate place for rants (a
blog is better), but it's still better than keeping it for myself.

I'm frustrated. My search for a good IDE to support my activities --
doing development for Python in the Windows environment -- are not
being succesful as I had originally dreamt. I have big constraints on
what can I do now; money is not an option, and my current machine is
still useful but it's below par for more advanced stuff. It's my
fault? Probably. But it's all that I have -- a 500MHz PC with 64MB and
Win98 SE. It has to be Windows, for reasons beyond my control (read
wife and kids :).

All IDEs I've evaluated so far have shown so far some type of
showstopper. Some of them are fixable (I can do it myself), but it's
not supposed to be like this. Even for open source projects, the least
that one expects is to be able to install and run.

The only partial exception so far is Boa Constructor. Riaan is
responsive, and there is a lot of things implemented. However, it's
far from perfect. It's heavy, takes a long time to load, and has some
debatable UI features -- some may like it, but I think about them as
little more than annoying design inconsistencies.

DrPython has show some promise. However, on my first try I could not
start it -- had to patch the initialization code. My patch is a hack,
so I haven't contributed it back. The problem is simple, just that my
PC just can't handle paths with slashes -- I had to pass backslashes
to all os.* calls. I never had this issue before, so I don't know if
it's my Windows version or Python's libray fault (I assume the
former). I managed to start it yesterday very late at night, but
haven't tried to use it immediately. I tried it again now, and it's
bombing as soon as I ask to open a new file. Can I fix it? Probably.
But that's not the point - I should be delivering code to my
customers.

I also tried Wing IDE Personal. At first it worked fine; it's a little
bit heavy, but... as soon as I try to save some file it bombs, too.
Haven't tried to contact the support, because I had decided that I
could probably find other tool to fit my bill. Now I may need to
reevaluate it once again, but first, it has to start saving files :-|.

Other non-option is eric3 -- mainly because I can't install it, Qt
being commercial for Windows.

The funny thing is that I don't need anything particularly fancy. A
good Python editor, syntax coloring, a few helpers (moving blocks &
stuff). Debugging is good, but it's not what I really miss. Even form
designers -- I could live without them. What I really miss are stuff
that I regard as basic: a tabbed editor window for multiple files, and
a good project manager interface -- a place where I can find all the
files belonging to my projects without having to move around the
directory tree whenever I have to do anything. Could I do it using
only command-line tools? Probably, but it's not comfortable,
convenient or productive. A good IDE would bring me these three things
that I'm longing for.

For now, I'm still having to resort on PythonWin for all my needs.
That's a shame, not because PythonWin isn't good (in fact it's a
fantastic piece of software); but because Python deserves better.

--
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: (e-mail address removed)
mail: (e-mail address removed)
 
C

Carlos Ribeiro

Alberto,


It's not going to help with my particular problem... because almost
*all* editors that I've tried already use Scintilla through various
different bindings. In fact, Boa, Eric3, PythonWin *and* DrPython all
use it. The only tool that I'm not sure about it is Komodo - but I
wouldn't be surprised if it too used Scintilla as the text editor
widget. I also have downloaded SciTE and a couple other Scintilla
based editors.

The problem here is not with the editor -- is with the supporting
environment. My app is still in the early stages of programming and
already has several different source code files in several
directories. Were I using a tool like Delphi, it would be fairly easy
to keep track of everything. As I said, it's not that I can't do it
otherwise. It's just that I know from my personal experience that a
good tool can save a lot of time and add more convenience to the job.

--
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: (e-mail address removed)
mail: (e-mail address removed)
 
R

Rob McCrea

Carlos said:
I'm frustrated. My search for a good IDE to support my activities --
doing development for Python in the Windows environment -- are not
being succesful as I had originally dreamt.
> As mentioned, it's rather fully customizable, easy to add a new file


My search for a good IDE ended years ago when I started learning C++,
and found EditPlus, http://www.editplus.com/ -- $30, free 30 day trial
(last I knew.)

*Regex find/replace and grep (called "find in files")

*Match brace

*Custom user tools -- this is what makes it an IDE: For python I only
have 2 tools so far (I'm very new to python), execute "python ~thisfile"
normally, or with editplus capturing the output. But for c++ I have
many, such as "make all", "make debug", execute "~thisproject.exe", "gpp
~thisfile", "gpp *.cpp -o ~thisproject.exe" and from time to time I've
tossed up whatever 3rd party application just to have handy on the toolbars.

*Customize keyboard shortcuts

*record keystrokes for macros

*Syntax highlighting (I guess it only comes with HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP,
Perl, C/C++, Java, JavaScript and VBScript installed, but they certainly
have at least one Python for download, and editing or creating your own
is simple enough) (Well -- I just looked, the have many syntax types,
Oracle, Pascal, Dephi, MySQL, XHTML, DHTML, Perl, Perlscript,
ColdFusion, Lua, C#, mIRC, OpenGL, Apache, FORTRAN, Latex, VisualLisp,
Tcl/Tk -- and hell, it's gonna take me forever to get down this list,
and those were the few names I've heard of. This large list does
suggest alot of people are using editplus.

*Autocompletion, for command or function structures (which I don't use)

*Cliptext (I do like have the handy list of ascii/ansi symbols for when
I forget that '_'==chr(95), or if I just want to click an drag a the
copyright symbol someplace, even into another app: ©

And for HTML (which is, I suppose, It's specialty) -- it has a seamless
IE, or launch whatever browser, and FTP capabilites.

But it's more impressive just for it's text editing capabilites:

*Column selection! (and column fill)
*Line indenting! Need to indent (or dedent) those 20 lines of code?
select, then ctrl-i or ctrl-shft-i !
*you can use tabs, or you can use spaces via the tab key, setting tab
width is easy.
*even allows virtual space
*toggleable ruler, line numbers
*spellchecker
*4 ways to change case: all upper, all lower, reverse, or captilize
first left of everyword.
*unix and pc fileformat.
*auto-backup option
*an intresting "autosave" feature, optional for your user tools. For
example, I click my tool, and python tells me I have an error, I fix
that, and click my tool again to view the new results. I didn't have to
save manually, since that's how I have that tool set.
*and of course, choose your favorite fonts.

*I just realized it does e-mail, I haven't tried that yet.

-- most setting are independant based on filetype, perhaps you use TAB
for 4 spaces in .py, but you use TAB for a 5-space tab-char in .txt --
no problem.

Best of all, it's quick and light. Even wordpad seems to slowdown my
comp more than editplus. It does have a very nice finished feel, and,
believe it or not, it reminds me more of notepad than any other program.

I use win98, it's keep me happy for years. They do practice good
customer support.

Good luck,
Rob

--I mean, If I had "column select" before now, I wouldn't have killed
anybody.
 
M

M. Bitner

I don't know if Komodo uses Scintilla as the editor or not. Komodo is
primarily based on Mozilla. It does have tabbed windows for editing
and the ability to organize your files in projects. They have a 30-day
trial version if you want to try it out.
 
I

Ian J Cottee

Carlos said:
Oh well. A mailing list is not the most appropriate place for rants (a
blog is better), but it's still better than keeping it for myself.

[snip]

I spent quite a bit of time evaluating Python IDE's a few months back
and I agree with you. The only one I liked was WingIDE 2 but none of
them were able to tempt me away from Emacs. In particular I am using the
emacs code browser with Python (http://ecb.sourceforge.net). I think it
may well do what you want although it does take a little setting up and
if you don't know Emacs you have that hill to climb.

I just did a screen shot from some python source code I am working on
for a Plone project. (click on the image to fullsize it).

http://photos.zobbo.org/album04/python_ecb

Note the left hand panels which are giving links to files in the current
directory, recently opened files, directory paths and a class browser
for the current source file. With my setup if (for example) I <Alt>-. on
the word StringWidget in my Case.py source file I'll automatically open
up the class definition in the window next to it.

Using emacs python mode I get syntax hilighting, easy methods of moving
code around and the ability to set tracepoints using pdb and display the
pdb buffer next to the source code you are debugging. As you work your
way through the code, the source buffer will track what you are looking
at simultaneously.

Another benefit is I can run the same IDE on both Windows, Linux and OS
X and (importantly for me) can run the same environment over a ssh
terminal if I am developing on a remote machine. The screenshot is from
XP by the way. I also use the Emacs ELSE mode to make templating easier.

if you use xemacs you can have tabbing for the openfiles although I
personally I don't like that setup.

Not saying this solution is for everyone and it isn't perfect but it's
the best I've found so far for me.

Ian
 
A

Aaron Bingham

Komodo *does* use Scintilla.

M. Bitner said:
I don't know if Komodo uses Scintilla as the editor or not. Komodo is
primarily based on Mozilla. It does have tabbed windows for editing
and the ability to organize your files in projects. They have a 30-day
trial version if you want to try it out.
--
 
F

Frithiof Andreas Jensen

The only partial exception so far is Boa Constructor. Riaan is
responsive, and there is a lot of things implemented. However, it's
far from perfect. It's heavy, takes a long time to load ...

That's because your PC suck!

On top of that, Windows 98 SE sucks even more, being possibly the worst
aggregation of misfeatures to be built ontop of the already shaky dos-based
Windows lineage!!

The real problem is that nobody is likely to help you much because the
developers themselves have moved on to bigger and better platforms;

Clever IDE's *need* ample memory and CPU to draw all the pretty pictures and
generate all that code on-the-fly, the developers usually have all that in
abundance, so it is not likely that anyone designing IDE's will really
*care* enough to do any testing on Win 98 in a memory starved environment!!

I would bite it and Upgrade:

Windows XP is a decent enough OS, IMO, and a bottom-of-the-range PC - which
is a 1 GHz Athlon with 256 MB RAM, Geforce 2 graphics and 40 GB HDD - can
often be had at less than USD 200. An entirely different stratosfere, from
what you are used to - and I bet some of the stability problems with many of
the IDEs' will disappear too.
 
D

Daniel Ellison

Rob said:
My search for a good IDE ended years ago when I started learning C++,
and found EditPlus, http://www.editplus.com/ -- $30, free 30 day trial
(last I knew.)

It *has* to be mentioned, of course, that Vim (http://www.vim.org) has
nearly every feature mentioned about EditPlus and all the other IDEs,
including syntax highlighting (for Python, even!:), column selection
(and block selection, and line selection), regex, match brace, etc.
Running on Cygwin you have easy access to grep, make, and all other
nifty *nix development tools. But failing that, there's a Windows grep
(http://www.wingrep.com/) and a host of other ported utilities
(http://jrfonseca.dyndns.org/projects/gnu-win32/software/ported/, for
example).

Best of all, Vim is free (well, it's "charityware") and /very/ stable. I
can honestly say that in 10 years I have *never* had Vim crash on me. As
rumoured, it does take a little getting used to, but the rewards are
worth it.

No, I'm not trying to start yet another editor war! I'm just pointing to
a useful tool that often gets overlooked in this GUI world of ours. But
then, there's always Gvim...

Dan
 
A

Alex Martelli

Carlos Ribeiro said:
fault? Probably. But it's all that I have -- a 500MHz PC with 64MB and
Win98 SE. It has to be Windows, for reasons beyond my control (read ...
PC just can't handle paths with slashes -- I had to pass backslashes
to all os.* calls. I never had this issue before, so I don't know if
it's my Windows version or Python's libray fault (I assume the

I wonder if it's connected to using some specific internationalized
version of Win98 SE, because, using US and Italian versions thereof, I
had no problems whatsoever with this issue. I don't know if you can try
installing a US or other plain vanilla version of Win98 SE to see if
that changes things -- me, I definitely don't have a (?Brazilian? not
sure what you might be using...) version around to try the other way.
former). I managed to start it yesterday very late at night, but
haven't tried to use it immediately. I tried it again now, and it's
bombing as soon as I ask to open a new file. Can I fix it? Probably.
But that's not the point - I should be delivering code to my
customers.

Sure, but if Win98 SE _does_ have specific problems with (e.g.) the
Brazilian version, that don't show up in the US, France, Italy, Germany,
and so on -- just a hypothesis, but I can't think of what else it might
be -- how do you expect those problems to be found, much less
worked-around, until and unless somebody using that specific buggy
version tries doing normal things (such as passing / instead of \ as
part of filenames) and they start blowing up?

If you can reproduce specific problems with slashes vs backslashes on
one vs another version of Windows and a good recent Python, opening a
bug report may (if somebody who's doing bug-fixing has the buggy version
of Windows around) produce workarounds for the next release of Python.
You sure can't hope for workarounds or fixes from Microsoft, who does
not even support your version of Windows any more, I believe.


Alex
 
D

Dave Cook

The funny thing is that I don't need anything particularly fancy. A
good Python editor, syntax coloring, a few helpers (moving blocks &
stuff). Debugging is good, but it's not what I really miss. Even form
designers -- I could live without them. What I really miss are stuff
that I regard as basic: a tabbed editor window for multiple files, and
a good project manager interface -- a place where I can find all the
files belonging to my projects without having to move around the
directory tree whenever I have to do anything. Could I do it using
only command-line tools? Probably, but it's not comfortable,
convenient or productive. A good IDE would bring me these three things
that I'm longing for.

XEmacs has tabbed editing (maybe GNU Emacs does now, too? ctrl-click does
bring up a buffer menu.) The standard emacs package recent_files is useful
for keeping track of projects. And these days the emacsen are lightweight
compared to many other environments. It's a great environment for python
development.

http://www.xemacs.org/Download/win32/

Dave Cook
 
C

Carlos Ribeiro

Alex,

I wonder if it's connected to using some specific internationalized
version of Win98 SE, because, using US and Italian versions thereof, I
had no problems whatsoever with this issue.

You're right. I *never* had this issue before. I'm sure that there's a
bug somewhere -- mainly because changing the slashes in DrPython code
to double-backslashes solved my problem -- but I'm still trying to
figure it out. I'm using Python 2.3.2 (not the latest and greatest
version, I know), because I'm normally very conservative with my
development tools. I'll try to reproduce it and post it to the list.


--
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: (e-mail address removed)
mail: (e-mail address removed)
 
C

Carlos Ribeiro

My search for a good IDE ended years ago when I started learning C++,
and found EditPlus, http://www.editplus.com/ -- $30, free 30 day trial
(last I knew.)

Thanks for the pointer. Actually, Scintilla is great as far as the
editing capabilities are concerned -- including column select, which
is just a matter of holding ALT while dragging the mouse. You can try
it on PythonWin, it works, as in all . User tools are another matter;
for example, DrPython does support them, but I'm still trying to
figure out the situation with my slashes vs. backslashes.

Reading your feature list, it seems to be missing project management,
or to put it simply, to be able to track down what files are part of
the project without the need to actually walk around the directory
tree to hunt them down. I'll check it out, nonetheless.

--
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: (e-mail address removed)
mail: (e-mail address removed)
 
C

Carlos Ribeiro

Alex,

Regarding the slash-backslash problem... I found the bug, it was not
hard, after all.

The problem was a side effect of the way DrPython builds some of its
environment variables, and the handling of double slashes in file
names.

At startup DrPython tries to detect the homedir. The code tries some
alternatives; if the envvars or the tilde options are not available,
and if the program is running under Win32, then it starts with "c:\".

A little bit later, it adds new path components to the path. Guess
what happens? The home dir becomes: "c:\\drpython"...

....but double slashes are invalid at that particular position. It
seems to be a side effect of the way network shares are named, of
course, although I fail to see why it should cause a problem in this
particular example. It's no problem if additional slashes are located
elsewhere into the middle of the path name.

I've fixed it and I'll send the fix to the DrPython guys. In fact, it
solved *all* issues I had with DrPython, including some strange
lockups that would last for minutes.

--
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: (e-mail address removed)
mail: (e-mail address removed)
 
I

Istvan Albert

Reading your feature list, it seems to be missing project management,
or to put it simply, to be able to track down what files are part of
the project without the need to actually walk around the directory
tree to hunt them down. I'll check it out, nonetheless.

It does have project management. EditPlus is my favorite editor
and every time I try another IDE I find the EditPlus does some things
so much better that I'll go back to it.

Istvan
 
T

Thomas Heller

Carlos Ribeiro said:
Oh well. A mailing list is not the most appropriate place for rants (a
blog is better), but it's still better than keeping it for myself.

I'm frustrated. My search for a good IDE to support my activities --
doing development for Python in the Windows environment -- are not
being succesful as I had originally dreamt. I have big constraints on
what can I do now; money is not an option, and my current machine is
still useful but it's below par for more advanced stuff. It's my
fault? Probably. But it's all that I have -- a 500MHz PC with 64MB and
Win98 SE. It has to be Windows, for reasons beyond my control (read
wife and kids :).

If you work on Windows, you should really, really, really upgrade to
win2k, at least - even if it costs some performance on your machine.

You can even *use* the 'dos-box' then ;-).

Thomas
 
R

Rob McCrea

Istvan said:
It does have project management. EditPlus is my favorite editor
and every time I try another IDE I find the EditPlus does some things
so much better that I'll go back to it.

Istvan

Yep, I did try to infer the project management when I mentioned I had a
tool for [execute "~thisproject.exe"], but my message certainly wasn
t well-composed :)

And Carlos, I am very curious about why you took the time to "de-spam"
my e-mail address when you sent the message to the group anyway. But,
no need to satisfy my curiousity :)

Hope you do find something which is right for you, which should be a key
point. To each his own.

Rob
 
R

Rob McCrea

Thomas said:
If you work on Windows, you should really, really, really upgrade to
win2k, at least - even if it costs some performance on your machine.

You can even *use* the 'dos-box' then ;-).

Thomas

In my not-at-all-humble-but-very-honest opinion, that's the worst
suggestion I've heard in this topic.

Rob
 

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