Python and IDEs [was Re: Python 3 is killing Python]

[Duncan Booth]

Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:

> Unfortunately, software development on Windows is something of a
> ghetto, compared to the wide range of free tools available for Linux.
> Outside of a few oases like Microsoft's own commercial development
> tools, it's hard to do development on Windows. Hard, but not
> impossible, of course, and there are quite a few resources available
> for the Windows user willing to download installers from the Internet.
> For Python users, the IDEs from Wingware and Activestate are notable:
> 
>     https://wingware.com/
>     http://komodoide.com/
> 
> 
> 
I missed this thread when it started, so please forgive me if this has 
been covered, but by dismissing Microsoft you look to have skipped over 
a very powerful Python IDE for Windows, namely PTVS.

Microsoft's PTVS is Windows only :-( and completely free (gratuit), 
partly free (libre): PTVS itself is Apache licensed and the required 
Visual Studio is of course closed source but PTVS now runs on the latest 
free versions of Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web or Visual Studio 
Express 2013 for Desktop (which includes C++).

Some of the features:

works with CPython (2.x or 3.x) or IronPython. Full support for 
virtualenv, packages can be installed directly from PTVS individually or 
from requirements.txt.

Intellisense uses a completion database generated in the background from 
the standard library and all installed libraries. It offers context 
sensitive completion which does a pretty good job of inferring the type 
of local variables based on the types of the values used to call the 
function.

Refactoring (Rename, Extract Method, Add Import, Remove unused imports) 

Interactive windows for all installed Python versions (can use standard 
shell or IPython)

Debugging locally or remotely including Linux and OS X targets (in fact 
they claim that anything capable of running Python can be debugged). 

Mixed mode Python and C++ debugging.

Profiling (CPython only).

Automatic test discovery for tests using unittest.

Support for PyLint.

Automatic deployment to Windows Azure.

Extensive support for Django (including Intellisense and debugging for 
templates and various Django specific commands such as sync db and admin 
shell).

-- 
Duncan Booth