[BangPypers] BangPypers Digest, Vol 8, Issue 15

[Siddharta]

The problem I have with stand alone editors is that they are okay for 
writing code, but absolutely lousy for reading and cleaning code. Most 
of the time I'm dealing with multiple files, and when reading code I 
want to be able to jump to the implementation of a method, then go back 
to where I was and so on. Then you want to rename a method or move code 
into a separate module and fix all the references. These kinds of things 
are major headaches in a standalone editor and tags/grep etc dont cut 
it. In any long term project, 75% of the work is in maintenance, reading 
and cleaning code. Unfortunately, most editors are optimised for 
*writing* code which is the least of my problems with Python's minimal 
syntax. I prefer an IDE optimized for reading, navigating and cleaning 
code and Wing does a pretty good job here, not as good as some other 
language IDEs but the best I've seen for Python.

The second thing I like about Wing is that it has an interactive python 
shell which executes in context. Which means I can select a piece of 
code and run just that snippet in the shell and see the output. Also, I 
can put a breakpoint and then execute code in the shell with the 
execution context at the time of the breakpoint. Both are really useful, 
and again not provided in a stand alone editor. Plus a very nice 
debugger where you can see the call stack, breakpoints, watches, single 
step which are taken for granted in any language IDE but seem to be 
missing or poorly implemented in most Python IDEs.
--
Siddharta Govindaraj

Pradeep Gowda wrote:
>
> On 06-May-08, at 12:51 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
>
>> textmate for mac and SPE or eric4 for linux
>>
>
> Lets me also point out that whatever you choose, dont *ever* use Notepad.
> Notepad is the most useless piece of software that ships with windows.
>
> I use Textmate and aquamacs (both on mac of course) and vim occasionally.
>
> For a windows new user, I recomment SciTE (which is also available via 
> pywin IDE).
>  I recommend it to every new student of mine and so far, I've heard no 
> complaints. Some of them have switched to vim/emacs etc.,. But to 
> start with SciTe is the easiest.
> Its super-light weight, supports lots of languages, is cross platform.
> An editor like SciTE which "understands" python, makes the "space is 
> signiicant" mental block a little easy for the newbie.
> Also, SciTE has an easy shortcut "F5" to execute code, the result of 
> which can be seen in split window. This also makes it attractive for 
> "write-test" interactive mode.
>
> On the side notes: I wrote an app using Google AppEngine and Python : 
> http://www.btbytes.com/2008/05/announcing-teh-the-minimalist-blog-tool-using-google-app-engine 
>
>
> +Pradeep