IDE Python

[Lothar Scholz]

> It is my understanding that Python is largely self-documenting. It has 
> dir(), globals(), locals() etc. Why couldn't the editor compile and 
> execute the source code in sandbox on the fly? It would then know the 
> object types in most cases. By "in sandbox" I mean that it should not 
> execute any operating system functions (file, network etc) but it should 
> create the objects still.

This is a very bad idea. There is nothing like a sandbox that gives
you a reliable test evaluation. Code depends on the order you run the
modules, etc.
Sit back and really think about it - if you still believe your idea is
useable get a python book and learn more about the language.

One theoretical idea is to track the types used in former program
runs. But this is in general an O(exp) problem, so nobody is doing
this.

> Visual Basic has a very good intellisense. But it only works if you 
> define the data types explicitly. Python should have an option to define 
> the data type for variables... and "option explicit", which should be 
> simple to implement.

This is what Wing IDE is doing.