Python education survey

[Raymond Hettinger]

Do you use IDLE when teaching Python?
If not, what is the tool of choice?

Students may not be experienced with the command-line and may be
running Windows, Linux, or Macs.  Ideally, the tool or IDE will be
easy to install and configure (startup directory, path, associated
with a particular version of Python etc).

Though an Emacs user myself, I've been teaching with IDLE because it's
free; it runs on multiple OSes, it has tooltips and code colorization
and easy indent/dedent/comment/uncomment commands, it has tab
completion; it allows easy editing at the interactive prompt; it has
an easy run-script command (F5); it has direct access to source code
(File OpenModule) and a class browser (Cntl+B).

On the downside, some python distros aren't built with the requisite
Tcl/Tk support; some distros like the Mac OS ship with a broken Tcl/Tk
so users have to install a fix to that as well; and IDLE sometimes
just freezes for no reason.  It also doesn't have an easy way to
specify the startup directory.

If your goal is to quickly get new users up and running in Python,
what IDE or editor do you recommend?


Raymond