New to python, do I need an IDE or is vim still good enough?

[Roy Smith]

In article <mailman.1446.1356816523.29569.python-list at python.org>,
 Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:

> Auto-complete is handy, but not critical.

You just wait until your finger joints get to be my age and tell me that 
auto-complete isn't critical :-)

> It's extremely handy; not only errors from
> compilation/execution, but things like a 'git grep -n' fit too.

Emacs has integrations with many version control systems.  Over the 
years, I've gone back and forth over whether I do my version control 
from within emacs or at the command line.

These days (with mercurial), I tend to do most vc-things at the command 
line.  But, I'm addicted to C-x v = (hg diff).  It diffs the current 
buffer against the last checked-in version of the file, and can take me 
directly to any particular changed line.

Again, I would imagine any decent editor these days would have something 
similar.  It just blows my mind when I see people editing program text 
with NotePad or some similar piece of crap.

Oh, yeah, one other thing I forgot.  You want to use an editor which can 
(preferably as something you can turn on and off easily) put line 
numbers down the left margin of the screen.  For solo editing, it's kind 
of silly.  But if you're doing any kind of pair programming, code 
review, or presentation to a group, it's invaluable.  Compare and 
contrast:

"In the big for loop, a couple of lines down, no, not there, the other 
for loop, yeah, now go down a couple of lines, no that's too far, back 
up one.  Yeah there.  On that line, why do you ..."

with:

"On line 647, why do you ..."