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Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

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Re: Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

#31

Post by JabavuAdams »

enlightenMe wrote: post #26

Wing - I found this very useful with good debugger, auto-complete, project management and it is scriptable in python. Can be a bit slow at times though - you need a good machine to run it. emacs - I ended up getting frustrated with the number of different options for python (ECB vs rope vs python.el vs python-mode.el vs ...) and I also couldn't get auto-complete working too well and it seemed to take a lot of setting…

> Can be a bit slow at times though - you need a good machine to run it.

This is one of my pet peeves in IDEs. I can't stand slow-down or random auto-complete pauses.

Re: Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

#32

Post by zain »

goldf wrote: post #29
dabeeeenster wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've run into the Django reloading issue too, with Eclipse. If there is a solution I'd love to hear it...

by changing the run configuration for manage.py: run the manage.py file (open it and hit F9), the console will show you a help message. Now go to the menu and find your run configuration for manage.py. Navigate to the arguments tab and just add runserver --noreload. Thats it.

Then you can debug, but your changes aren't picked up unless you restart the server -- which is exactly what dabeeeenster and I are complaining about.

Re: Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

#33

Post by alnayyir »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #31
enlightenMe wrote: post #26

Wing - I found this very useful with good debugger, auto-complete, project management and it is scriptable in python. Can be a bit slow at times though - you need a good machine to run it. emacs - I ended up getting frustrated with the number of different options for python (ECB vs rope vs python.el vs python-mode.el vs ...) and I also couldn't get auto-complete working too well and it seemed to take a lot of setting…

> Can be a bit slow at times though - you need a good machine to run it. This is one of my pet peeves in IDEs. I can't stand slow-down or random auto-complete pauses.

Dual quad core xeons, 4 gigs of ram, and a RAID 0 dual 2.5" SAS drives, 73gb 10K rpm solved that problem for me.

Also, I hate how much hardware it takes to make anything run well.

Moore's Law is wrong about cost, it takes the same amount of money as before to make things run as well as it used to.

Honestly, if we're going to use languages like Ruby/Python/Perl which are so expensive on cycles it's ridiculous, can we save ourselves some computation pain, and skip the rest of the way to SBCL? Please? It's a minor speed penalty compared to ruby.

Re: Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

#34

Post by JabavuAdams »

sb wrote: post #16

I use emacs for all my coding work (multiple languages) and am very satisfied with it. I have tried Komodo and a couple of my colleagues at work swear by it--it's a bit bloated for my taste, but probably I am kind of old fashioned... (btw: same holds true for Eclipse--imho at least). It would probably be nice to know what experience you've had with emacs and why you are looking for an ide, then people might be able t…

I respect Emacs, but the fundamental problem is that I want to get things done, not play with the plumbing of my editor. That can be interesting, yes, but I have many other plumbing projects with higher priority.

I liked using Emacs + SLIME in the Practical Common Lisp LispBox bundle, but didn't really feel like I was in control, because I simply don't know Emacs well enough.

Actually, about every 6 months or so, I go on an Emacs kick, but stop after a few days. Hmm, maybe it's that time again.

At work, I use Visual Studio. It's annoying, but with Visual Assist X, it's good enough. The devil you know, and all that. I can do almost anything I need to, without mousing.

At home, I've switched my main machine to a Mac Book Pro.

Hmm. That's where some of the recent dissatisfaction comes from: I'm using a notebook keyboard.

Re: Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

#35

Post by bootload »

m0shen wrote: post #18
oz wrote: post #14

have you tried Eric? http://www.die-offenbachs.de/eric/index.html

looks very promising! I look forward to checking this out.

"... have you tried Eric? ..."

also check out 'Idle' the standard editor issued with Python ... sorry I couldn't resist ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Idle

Re: Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

#36

Post by sharjeel »

I do my development on WinXP and most of my work is in Python/Django. I am using PyScripter and I am pretty satisfied with it.

Previously I used Eclipse + PyDev but found it pretty slow and sometimes buggy. The debugger used to hang a lot even for simple python scripts. I switched to PyScripter and found it way better than any other free IDE available.

PyScripter is perfect for me in all sense except for debugging. The debugger is a bit unstable and does not work well with django.

Few days back I tried WingIDE. Being a Windows user I have a few issues with its look & feel as it is in GTK but prolly a *nix user feel will feel more comfortable with it than PyScripter. I've found its debugger better than any other and works for django perfectly. Stability is also good. I think it is worth the price.

Re: Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

#37

Post by apu »

pragmatic wrote: post #21
pavelludiq wrote: post #9

Vim

I've tried them all and keep coming back to VIM. You can get intelli-sense, err I mean code completion and it integrates right into VIM. It's just fast and minimal. It just works.

Maybe it's just me, but I actually find the intelli-sense annoying in vim. I prefer the normal ctrl-n/-p without the popup (too distracting/slow/etc).

Re: Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

#39

Post by tjmojo »

zain wrote: post #17

I've found it very hard to find an IDE that works properly with Django. In particular, there seems to be no way debug code while using the Django dev server with its autoreload feature. This means that either you don't debug code, or you have to restart the Django dev server every time you make a change. Very annoying. Also, I haven't been able to find any Eclipse/IDEA level features in a Python IDE... things like be…

My experience with PyDev+Extensions/Eclipse: [1] got (great?) interactive debugging, [2] fairly smart code completion (works for most Django stuff, see below), [3] plus all the other Eclipse niceties: a decent HTML/CSS editor (with WST), SVN integration, Mylyn with trac integration (manage trac tickets from inside Eclipse: nice), etc.

I configured the Django source as another project in Eclipse and make it a dependency in all my Django-based PyDev projects. This makes it possible to click on a class or function name and directly jump to its definition/declaration/source. That's better than any documentation.

Maybe the reason this works for me is that I also got the PyDev extensions? Even if it's just to support the PyDev developer with some cash, there are a few additional features in the extension that definitely improve productivity; see http://www.fabioz.com/pydev/. I configured the integration with PyLint, which helps a lot with coding style, especially since I am--for all intents and purposes--a novice to Python (4+ months of working with it).

Here's my take on the whole debugging Django issue:

a) In my experience, only a small fraction of development time is spent debugging. With the proper code structure/patterns/unit testing, little debugging should be necessary. This may be a controversial statement, but that's how I see it. For all the normal development use cases, just running the Django development server with default settings is fine and one can still edit inside Eclipse and get automatic reload. I have used debugging mostly to discover the framework (and Python) itself and found it extremely insightful, but did not need the reload feature then. Discovery can also be done in the interactive console, though.

b) If there is indeed a need to have a rapid change-debug cycle, the keyboard shortcuts to start a debug configuration in Eclipse allow a quick stop/restart of the development server with the --noreload option. The request can be made with the test client provided by Django; see http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/testing/#the-test..., so one keyboard shortcut gets you to your first break point, without even using the browser.

I know Eclipse is a bit on the heavy side. A few gigs of RAM and a dual-core CPU help. I also do a fair amount of cross-language development and like the Eclipse platform for the breath of available language and tool support. In the past, I've used it extensively for PHP development and of course Java.

Re: Ask HN: Professional Python IDEs?

#40

Post by sb »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #34
sb wrote: post #16

I use emacs for all my coding work (multiple languages) and am very satisfied with it. I have tried Komodo and a couple of my colleagues at work swear by it--it's a bit bloated for my taste, but probably I am kind of old fashioned... (btw: same holds true for Eclipse--imho at least). It would probably be nice to know what experience you've had with emacs and why you are looking for an ide, then people might be able t…

I respect Emacs, but the fundamental problem is that I want to get things done, not play with the plumbing of my editor. That can be interesting, yes, but I have many other plumbing projects with higher priority. I liked using Emacs + SLIME in the Practical Common Lisp LispBox bundle, but didn't really feel like I was in control, because I simply don't know Emacs well enough. Actually, about every 6 months or so, I g…

Hey, I am sorry for the delay (I am on CEST).

The interesting thing is: I can get things done in emacs much better than in anything else, since I am using tramp/dired+/cperl/auctex/re-builder/shell/svn/ediff/gud/etc.(could go on forever ;) which give me a competitive edge when compared to other tools; I was a heavy vim user (7y) before and still use it if it's just a typo or something like that, but vim has its own problems (different machines, different versions)

especially tramp is very much appreciated in web development environments, since i can just use any remote host as a local one...

ps: if visual studio means doing something in c# (the only thing i am not doing in emacs ;) i can heartily recommend resharper from intellij--without that visual studio is unbearable to me and always reminds me of vs 6.0 in the late nineties when it was still considered a good ide...

pps: i started using emacs just a couple of months ago, so if you are struggling, just give it a try--the juice is definitely worth the squeeze

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