Autocompletion and Interactive Tables in a Python IDE

Anthony ajdamico at gmail.com
Wed Jul 23 17:28:10 EDT 2008


Hi, I'm a FoxPro programmer, but I want to learn python before it's
too late.  I do a lot of statistical programming, so I import SPSS
into python.  In my opinion, the best features of Visual FoxPro 9.0
were:
a) Intellisense (tells you what classes/methods are available and what
variables go into a function)
b) Code Completion (guesses your code after four letters)
c) Data-Orientation; multiple data sessions can be open, data can be
viewed easily

Python's IDLE has only half of the first of these features.  I did a
lot of searching and found the PyDev extensions for Eclipse's Python
IDE, and found that they've got Intellisense.  I'm still missing b and
c, and am getting extremely frustrated programming so slowly..

So two questions:
Is there any package, gui, IDE, anything that will do FoxPro-style
code completion?  If it works in Eclipse, even better..
I can't find a good screenshot, but here's a better description:
You type "BROW" and it pops up a window that says "BROWSE" ..at this
point if you hit enter it completes the word..

and

How can I view open SPSS data in one of the Python GUIs?  Again,
Eclipse would be the preference.
Here's an example of how I'd like to browse the data:
http://www.vfpconversion.com/ArticleImage.aspx?QuickID=0209071&Image=vfptoolkit_figure02.tif
I don't want to have to switch back and forth between Python and SPSS
while I'm programming; I just want to stay in one of them..

What can I do?  I feel extremely inefficient when I don't have these
three features..

Thanks in advance.



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