Python education survey

[Luka Dornhecker]

On Tuesday, December 20, 2011 4:51:00 AM UTC+1, Raymond Hettinger wrote:
> 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

If you want an easy to use, cross-platform editor with lots of nice features I would also recommend Sulbime Text 2.
You would have to teach how to use the terminal on different platforms but for basic stuff, like running a python program it's basically the same on Linux, Windows and OSX.