[SciPy-user] Pros and Cons of Python verses other array environments

[Bill Baxter]

I checked out winpdb, but I didn't see any debug console the likes of
Matlab or Wing IDE.  I recall that it also integrates pretty with
Stani's Python Editor (SPE) to make something very close to an IDE,
but I couldn't find the equivalent of the debug console I was looking
for in that combo.

Looking here:
http://www.digitalpeers.com/pythondebugger/images/screenshot_winpdb.png
there is a big 'console' window, but it looks like that 'console' is a
console for the debugger, rather than regular python shell, like a GUI
version of what ipython gives you.  That means you issue _debugger_
commands at the prompt, rather than plain old python expressions.
IIRC, one of those debugger commands is indeed "eval a python
expression", but that's an unnecessary layer of inconvenience.

If there is a way to get a real python shell executing in the context
of the program being currently debugged with ipython or with winpdb, I
would certainly like to know about it, and would like to advertise
that ability on the numpy for matlab users page.  I was really quite
surprised to not find any debuggers or IDEs that had this very useful
feature of matlab.

--bb

On 9/29/06, Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Ryan May wrote:
>
> >> 2) integration of debugging is not as good as matlab.  In matlab when
> >> you stop at a breakpoint in your code, you get an interactive console
> >> where you can probe current values in your program, or create new ones
> >> etc.  The Wing IDE has this, but I couldn't find any open source IDEs
> >> that did this.
>
>    While winpdb is not a full-blown IDE, it is a gui front end to pdb. It
> does a very good job of showing you what's going on, and you can examine the
> value of variables and do other explorations at breakpoints or while
> stepping over (or through) your code.
>
> Rich
>