Looking for the Perfect Editor

[Wildemar Wildenburger]

> Hi Stu und "Willie",
>
"Willie"?
Thats new. ;)

> I will be running it under (sigh) Windows.
So? Apart from Microsoft being evil and spying on you all the time, I 
find much satisfaction in the fact that Windows Just Works(tm). Linux on 
the other hand Just Barely Works(tm). Hello flamewar :).


> I don't yet know what jython is about, or for, but I'm up for trying
 > jedit for python.
jython is an implementation of python in java (hence the name ;)). That 
means it's a python interpreter inside a java virtual machine (groan). 
It basically lets you write java apps in python syntax. It's currently 
at python 2.1 I believe.
jEdit is extensible though java, and with the jython plugin also through 
python.


> Which plugins give me a good start for scientific stuff?
Er ... I don't know. What do you mean by 'scientific stuff'?
You might want to look at python packages such as scipy (?) or numpy 
(for numerical calculations) or whatever those are called. I think you 
can hook up python to Matlab, Scilab or Mathematica, but don't take my 
word for it. I don't use any of this, so I cannot really tell you more.
None of this is jEdit specific though. Can you clarify?

> I am not interested in Web/html apps.
Too bad, that's the future ;).

> And is there an IDE out there that lets us create GUI dialogs along the 
> lines of what MS provides with Excel and, I assume, VB?
Stani's Python Editor (SPE) and Boa Constructor, I think. I've tried SPE 
a few years back and liked it a lot.
If you only ever write python code you might want to forget about jEdit 
and use one of the two above. jEdit is dubbed 'Programmer's Text 
Editor', and as such provides a 'unified' framework for many languages 
(so you don't have to learn a new editor for every damn language you 
write in once in a blue moon). It is for that reason a /tad/ less 
specialized (though highly configurable). If you still want to use 
jEdit, there is wxGlade for wxPython out there and Glade (not wxGlade!) 
works for pyGTK, I believe.
Hope that helps you deciding.


"Willie" ;)