[SciPy-User] Is it good practice to use IPython notebooks as your Python IDE?

[Brian Merchant]

Hi all,

Thank you for the wonderful discussion. I especially enjoyed learning about
IEP (which I had not heard of), and PyCharm (which I had simply disregarded
in the past)!

Ghis: I don't find much wrong with Spyder, apart from occasional stability
issues which are quickly fixed with a restart of the program, and thus are
hardly a hassle.

In the end, I have decided to use PyCharm (which I can get an academic
license for!) *primarily* because it has nice built-in VCS integration --
just a convenience really, than an absolutely killer function, but one that
is valuable to me.

I wanted to write code in a literate, and organized fashion. I thought
IPython notebooks might be a good idea, but as mentioned by others, there
are some issues with it. However, I think using a VCS to track and comment
on changes made to code is just as good! PyCharm has excellent integration
with git, including nice visual views of branches, merges etc.

*PyCharm also has integrated IPython notebook compatibility now*, so if I
occasionally want to write a couple of tests in a more literate fashion, I
can do so. Then of course, there are all the other IDE features that
PyCharm has covered in a more stable/polished fashion than Spyder. Spyder
doesn't have refactoring functionality (as far as I know?), so PyCharm is
quite nice there particularly.

Brian


On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 9:55 AM, Ghislain Vaillant <ghisvail at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Saturday, March 14, 2015, Brian Merchant <bhmerchant at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I need to write about 2000 lines worth of code (based on my last
> > implementation of the project I am working on). I anticipate that I'll be
> > using profilers (including line profilers), numpy, Numba, possibly Cython
> > and almost definitely matplotlib animations. I will need to write my own
> > classes, so my program isn't just going to be one long script.
> >
> >
> > Previously, I used Spyder for development, but I am wondering if it makes
> > sense for one to use an IPython notebook alone. I am considering that
> > option so that I force myself to program "literately" -- lots of
> headings,
> > and nice comments. Graphs embedded to show the effects of optimizations,
> > and so forth.
> >
> > So far, I know that IPython might have some trouble with integrating in
> > matplotlib animations, but that too is possible with a little research.
> > Otherwise, I should be able to do everything else quite easily, including
> > debugging, according to the IPython documentation. In fact, writing
> > parallel code in IPython might be a very nice idea given how it seems to
> > offer a lot of functionality in that direction.
> >
> >
> > Do people use IPython (notebooks) as a complete IDE often? If not, why
> not?
> >
> > Kind regards,
> > Brian
> >
>
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> Do you find anything wrong with Spyder ? I use both IEP [1] and Spyder
> extensively
> and find them pretty good for the use case you describe. However if you're
> looking for
> more project-style features like refactoring tools, project views, VCS
> integration, etc...,
> a full-featured IDE may be more appropriate, like PyCharm as kindly
> suggested by Alistair.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Ghis
>
>
>
>
> [1] http://www.iep-project.org/
>
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