reload and work flow suggestions

[Peter Cacioppi]

This is an idea brought over from another post.

When I write Python code I generally have 2 or 3 windows open simultaneously.

1) An editor for the actual code.
2) The interactive interpreter.
3) An editor for the unit tests. (Sometimes skipped for quick one-off scripts)

My work flow tends to involve using 2 to debug the issues that come up with 1 and 3. I'll write some new code in 1, play around with it in 2, then solidify the tests in 3. Or a test in 3 fails and I dig around with it using 2.

My problem is that I tend to use reload() quite a bit. I want to call functions and construct objects that are inside the guts of 1 and pass them arguments that are stored as variables in 2. If I restart my session for 2 I lose these variables (iPython does mitigate the pain here somewhat). Hence, I reload() modules into 2 when they are changed.

I use ipdb a lot in 2. I usually don't feel comfortable with virgin code or a debug fix that hasn't been stepped through with the debugger.

Is there something wrong with this work flow? I understand most python experts avoid reload(). So what are they doing that I'm not? I love the ability of Python to quickly let you dive deep into your code and set up a difficult case with 2, it's hard to imagine giving this up, and it's hard to imagine using it without reload(). 

Thanks for any tips.