Ranting about the state of Python IDEs for Windows

[Thomas Heller]

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

Care to explain?

Thomas

 

[Peter Hansen]

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

As Thomas is, I'm very curious why you would say that. And
I wonder if you would say that if you replaced 2K with XP,
or whether you are just against anyone switching from 98
to something better *if they have to work with Windows*
as Thomas clearly qualified the point.

For the record, switching from 98 to XP has been an incredibly
helpful upgrade in my own case, and I can't think why you
would make the comment you made.

-Peter

 

[Rob McCrea]

As Thomas is, I'm very curious why you would say that. And
I wonder if you would say that if you replaced 2K with XP,
or whether you are just against anyone switching from 98
to something better *if they have to work with Windows*
as Thomas clearly qualified the point.

For the record, switching from 98 to XP has been an incredibly
helpful upgrade in my own case, and I can't think why you
would make the comment you made.

-Peter

If moving to anything after win98se, I would (of course?) suggest XP,
but certainly not for a 500mHz with 64MB RAM. "if it costs some
performance" is a huge understatement. And I just hate the allusion of
the console window to anything close to DOS, which I can assume was not
intended and Thomas even tried to avoid.

My reply was biased and not at all "scientific", as I hoped my "opinion"
line would indicate. Maybe my personal summary is that there are only
two Windows operating systems, 98SE and XPPro; all the others have been
surpassed, IMHO. And let's make no mistake, XP did also (finally)
surpass 98, at a huge (yet affordable and worthwhile) cost to system
resources. -- But 98 is a still a practically needed link between
Windows and DOS.

So you're rather astute, Peter. If he had said XP, and didn't mention
"performance" since XP would almost mandate a more-than-modest system
upgrade, and lastly did not mention the term "dos-box" (even if said
facetiously in regards to that certain perspective of mine), I can't
imagine I would have tossed out my two cent.

I suppose I should mention that no disrespect at all was intended
towards Thomas' sound intention, though I found the given implementation
to be "really, really, really" unsatisfactory.

Rock on, peace,
Rob

 

[Peter Hansen]

If moving to anything after win98se, I would (of course?) suggest XP,
but certainly not for a 500mHz with 64MB RAM. "if it costs some
performance" is a huge understatement.

Granted.

Maybe my personal summary is that there are only
two Windows operating systems, 98SE and XPPro; all the others have been
surpassed, IMHO.

Agreed there too. (And while I said XP, I did mean XP Pro.)

and lastly did not mention the term "dos-box" (even if said
facetiously in regards to that certain perspective of mine), I can't
imagine I would have tossed out my two cent.

I happen to spend a lot of time at the "DOS" console (actually,
I suppose it's whatever cmd.exe is, not command.com, but for
purposes of this post the differences are largely irrelevant)
and don't find it particular limited. That's almost entirely,
however, because I've learned to depend very little on the tools
that I use, for a number of reasons.

I now work almost exclusively with Scite, Subversion (via
TortoiseSVN), and the console, and I'm at least as productive as
I ever was with a large array of much fancier tools at my
fingertips. But my approach to development is rather different
from that used by those who would prefer a fancy IDE, and as to that:
to each his own.

Cheers,
-Peter

 

[Jussi Jumppanen]

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 18:45:45 -0400, Rob McCrea

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.

Take a look at the Zeus for Windows programmers editor:

http://www.zeusedit.com/lookmain.html

Zeus has a full project/workspace manager and supports Python, C/C++
and almost any other programming language.

Some of the other programming features include:

+ Code completion and intellisensing
+ Integrated class browser
+ Fully configurable syntax highlighting
+ Seamless FTP editing
+ Integrated version control using the Microsoft Source Code
Control (SCC) interface, including CVS integration.
+ Quick Help context sensitive help engine
+ Fully scriptable using Python

Jussi Jumppanen
http://www.zeusedit.com

 

[Hans Nowak]

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.

One needs a high-end PC to edit code now?

 

[Neil Benn]

<snip>
Hello,

This is just a small suggestion but one tool that you could
look at is jedit (http://www.jedit.org) - it often gets overlooked
because as it's written in java python people sometimes think it for
Jython only - not true my erstwhile friends! It has a python plug-in
and can do highlighting, project management, feed the dog and more. It
doesn't have a GUI designer but I understand you don't need that?

Another IDE I use is Eclipse, I only use this for Java editing but I
heard somewhere that it has a Python plugin - eclipse is way more
complicated than jedit but if you learn how to use it there are
significant productivity gains (at least with Java!).

Cheers,

Neil

--

Neil Benn
Senior Automation Engineer
Cenix BioScience
BioInnovations Zentrum
Tatzberg 47
D-01307
Dresden
Germany

Tel : +49 (0)351 4173 154
e-mail : (e-mail address removed)
Cenix Website : http://www.cenix-bioscience.com

 

[Alex Martelli]

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,

Except, no tabbed interface when editing multiple files (not even with
GVIM: just ONE window, as seen from the OS/GUI level, even though vim
can partition it). Vim is my favourite editor, but the lack of tabbed
interface _is_ a pity.


Alex

 

[Frithiof Andreas Jensen]

One needs a high-end PC to edit code now?

Specify "code" - and "high end"; otherwise you do not say much!

Depends;

If, f.ex. - for reasons of corporate culture and productivity - one has to
run Rational Rose RT with C++, the *biggest* box you can possibly lay your
clammy hands on *now* is just about underspec'ed!!!

If plain "Idle" is the tool you prefer, I could get my old Slackware 486/66
with 4 MB RAM down from the loft for you!

 

[ChrisH]

I've used pydev and liked it. However, according to the author (the last
time I checked the site), the debugger is still in alpha and needs some
work.

 

[Rob McCrea]

If plain "Idle" is the tool you prefer, I could get my old Slackware 486/66
with 4 MB RAM down from the loft for you!

No, IDLE is too heavy and intrusive. As I said, I like Editplus.

I did just double check.

Rob

 

[JanC]

Neil Benn schreef:

This is just a small suggestion but one tool that you could
look at is jedit (http://www.jedit.org)

64 MiB RAM for Windows + JVM + JEdit + Python console + browser + ... ?

 

[Daniel Ellison]

Except, no tabbed interface when editing multiple files (not even with
GVIM: just ONE window, as seen from the OS/GUI level, even though vim
can partition it). Vim is my favourite editor, but the lack of tabbed
interface _is_ a pity.


Alex

Ah, but that partitioning, or splitting windows, is a viable alternative
to tabs. Once one gets used to it, splitting and moving from window to
window is done without thought. No, it's not convenient to have a dozen
files visible at the same time (I rarely have five visible
concurrently), but every file you've opened and closed in a session is
still available without having to retrieve it from the file system again.

The only thing Vim doesn't have is project management. But I do believe
there are Vim scripts that can handle this function to a certain extent.

Anyway, I'm not here to convert anyone. I just know that every time I've
tried to move to another editor I always end up back at Vim.

Dan

 

[Alex Martelli]

...
Ah, but that partitioning, or splitting windows, is a viable alternative
to tabs. Once one gets used to it, splitting and moving from window to
window is done without thought. No, it's not convenient to have a dozen

I've used VIM since day one (and vi before then) and yet I consider its
"partitioning or splitting window" a substantial productivity loss
compared to tabbed editors. Not a matter of getting used to it, just
ergonomically inferior.

The only thing Vim doesn't have is project management. But I do believe
there are Vim scripts that can handle this function to a certain extent.

That one I don't miss in the least.

Anyway, I'm not here to convert anyone. I just know that every time I've
tried to move to another editor I always end up back at Vim.

Me too, but that's part of why I grouse so badly about the few things
Vim doesn't do _right_. When I'm dialed in, no GUI, slow line, and have
to use vim without the G, sure, kludges like window splitting are better
than nothing. But mostly I'm on a GUI, with gvim, and the lack of
tabbed editing just sucks. Next time I have some spare time (that will
be the day) I'll give emacs+its vi emulations another try, I think.
Most likely I'll come back to Vim and start grousing again, tho...;-)


Alex

 

[Roel Schroeven]

Me too, but that's part of why I grouse so badly about the few things
Vim doesn't do _right_. When I'm dialed in, no GUI, slow line, and have
to use vim without the G, sure, kludges like window splitting are better
than nothing. But mostly I'm on a GUI, with gvim, and the lack of
tabbed editing just sucks. Next time I have some spare time (that will
be the day) I'll give emacs+its vi emulations another try, I think.
Most likely I'll come back to Vim and start grousing again, tho...;-)

To each his own, but in my experience with :bn, :bp, CTRL-6 and :buf +
tab completion, vim works about as well as tabbed editing. Requires more
commands to know then a GUI, but that's not a problem for vim-lovers.

 

[Caleb Hattingh]

I've used VIM since day one (and vi before then) and yet I consider its
"partitioning or splitting window" a substantial productivity loss
compared to tabbed editors. Not a matter of getting used to it, just
ergonomically inferior.

But mostly I'm on a GUI, with gvim, and the lack of
tabbed editing just sucks. Next time I have some spare time (that will
be the day) I'll give emacs+its vi emulations another try, I think.
Most likely I'll come back to Vim and start grousing again, tho...;-)


Alex

Alex

I initially had the same irritation, but:

I mapped (for example) keys F3 and F4 in ViM to switch between buffers
like so:

<inside .vimrc>
" Putting '!' after 'map' causes it to work regardless of current mode.
map! F3 <ESC>:bn!<CR>
map! F4 <ESC>:bp!<CR>
<fin>

Accessing multiple buffers has become a non-issue for me. In fact, I now
*prefer* this to tabbed editing. This, coupled with global marks (A-Z)
makes editing multiple files real easy.

If you really do want a list of buffers in gvim, the 'buffers' menu does
tear off...

I do hate window splitting though - the loss of screen real-estate is too
painful.

Thanks
Caleb

 

[AkioIto]

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 .

Look at http://www.pspad.com/en/index.html.
Very good and smart editor for Python and other languages.
You even can set menu for brazillian portuguese! And it's free...
"A dica vem com um certo atrazo, mas espero que seja util".

 

[Jussi Jumppanen]

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

Take a look at Zeus:

http://www.zeusedit.com/lookmain.html

doing development for Python in the Windows environment

Zeus only runs on Windows.

But it's all that I have -- a 500MHz PC with 64MB and Win98 SE.

Zeus should run fine on this machine. If you added another stick
of 64MB it would run better

Jussi Jumppanen
Author of: Zeus for Windows (New version 3.93 out now)
"The C/C++, Cobol, Java, HTML, Python, PHP, Perl programmer's editor"
Home Page: http://www.zeusedit.com

 

[Nick Vargish]

Look at http://www.pspad.com/en/index.html.

Thanks for the tip, looks perfect for the flash memory toolkit, since
it can just run from the directory it was unpacked into.

Nick