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

[Steven D'Aprano]

Duncan Booth wrote:

> 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.

I remember writing this. But I don't remember when it was. Presumably some
time in the last six months :-)

>> 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.

Never heard of it :-)

Which is not surprising, since I'm not a Windows developer.

[snip feature list]

Nice. How does one get it?

If I gave the impression that one cannot do development on Windows, that was
not my intent. I tried to indicate that the difference was a matter of
degree, not impossibility. One of the reasons why so many of the core
developers for Python use Linux is that they got frustrated with the speed
humps on Windows, the poor "out of the box" experience for developers
(compare what dev tools you get with Windows by default versus what you get
on Linux by default), but that might also be somewhat self-selecting:
people who are happy with Windows development tend to stick to VB, Java,
C, .Net etc. while those who prefer lighter weight more agile environments
migrate to Linux. I don't know. 

But I do know that the existence of good quality Windows development tools
for Python is good news for the community, so thank you for mentioning
this.


-- 
Steven