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Thonny: A hassle-free Python micro-IDE

thonny.org

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Re: Thonny: A hassle-free Python micro-IDE

#41

Post by sireat »

I start complete beginners to programming with Thonny.

Thonny has everything included to start quickly no external plugins, installs needed.

The debugger and the shell work quite nicely.

Key bindings are a bit different (instead of Ctrl+/ you have to use Ctrl+3)

After a few weeks I migrate them to VS Code or PyCharm and later Jupyter .

Every semester a few students stay with Thonny and it does not hold them back from making great projects.

You can install packages with Thonny but it tends to conflict with Anaconda installation leading to https://xkcd.com/1987/ situation.

Re: Thonny: A hassle-free Python micro-IDE

#42

Post by qwerty456127 »

F00Fbug wrote: post #34

I recommend this to my students frequently. I teach an intro to programming class to college students who have no experience. Inevitably, some try to use PyCharm and they just get lost in it! I tell them it's like learning to drive in an 18 wheeler with a manual transmission. Thonny is very much the Toyota Corolla of IDEs and it's perfect for beginners. The debugger and variable pane really help beginners figure out…

> Inevitably, some try to use PyCharm and they just get lost in it! I tell them it's like learning to drive in an 18 wheeler with a manual transmission.

Not really. You don't have to use all its features, they are neither necessary nor intrusive. E.g. I hardly know, let alone use more than 10% of its functionality. The only reasons I use it are very smart code completion, refactoring (rename variable/class/function/whatever, jump to definition, find all usages), breakpoint debugger, auto imports suggestions, and type hints derivation. I barely even use menu items besides "reformat code". But the smart code completion IntelliJ IDEs offer is by far the best on the market so its worth that. Extremely useful for lazy/occasional/novice coders who don't remember APIs by heart and don't want to sopend much time browsing the docs every time.

Re: Thonny: A hassle-free Python micro-IDE

#44

Post by MarcScott »

protonfish wrote: post #15

Why is everything an IDE? I don't want an integrated development environment - I want a modular one. And as one of those modules, I would love a simple, lightweight code editor. UTF-8 only, auto-indent, a file list column, a good find-in-page feature, and file type dependent syntax highlighting and multi-line comment key. That's all I need. It seems I am always stuck between bloated IDEs (or bloated text editors like…

You have heard of vim and emacs haven't you?

Re: Thonny: A hassle-free Python micro-IDE

#45

Post by buildbot »

eitland wrote: post #5
Naac wrote: post #3

The debugger looks neat. Would be nice to have the same micro-IDE for Go, Rust, Ruby, etc. Something like the Jetbrains tools, but open source.

Fun fact: the core of Jetbrains IntelliJ is a very capable real, extensible open source IDE that they've released themselves. I suspect (but I'm not sure) that the rest of their desktop products are built on top of that.

This seems pretty true, basically each IDE seems to be the same core with different plugins enabled. At one point you could turn IntelliJ into basically PyCharm with a few plugins supplied by jetbrains themselves.

Re: Thonny: A hassle-free Python micro-IDE

#47

Post by mstolpm »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #42
F00Fbug wrote: post #34

I recommend this to my students frequently. I teach an intro to programming class to college students who have no experience. Inevitably, some try to use PyCharm and they just get lost in it! I tell them it's like learning to drive in an 18 wheeler with a manual transmission. Thonny is very much the Toyota Corolla of IDEs and it's perfect for beginners. The debugger and variable pane really help beginners figure out…

> Inevitably, some try to use PyCharm and they just get lost in it! I tell them it's like learning to drive in an 18 wheeler with a manual transmission. Not really. You don't have to use all its features, they are neither necessary nor intrusive. E.g. I hardly know, let alone use more than 10% of its functionality. The only reasons I use it are very smart code completion, refactoring (rename variable/class/function/w…

I'd assume you are not working in education? Of course, PyCharm has great features and you don't need to use all of them when working with the IDE on your own as a novice coder. But as a teacher, you have a completely different problem: You need a really simple, easy to explain environment - no fuss, no unnecessary complexity. Students /will/ explore unused features on their own and get lost or mess up. There is simply no time to deal with all possible problems individually as a teacher.

Re: Thonny: A hassle-free Python micro-IDE

#48

Post by jussij »

protonfish wrote: post #15

Why is everything an IDE? I don't want an integrated development environment - I want a modular one. And as one of those modules, I would love a simple, lightweight code editor. UTF-8 only, auto-indent, a file list column, a good find-in-page feature, and file type dependent syntax highlighting and multi-line comment key. That's all I need. It seems I am always stuck between bloated IDEs (or bloated text editors like…

You have basically described the Zeus Lite editor. However it only runs on Windows :(

Re: Thonny: A hassle-free Python micro-IDE

#49

Post by qwerty456127 »

mstolpm wrote: post #47
qwerty456127 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inevitably, some try to use PyCharm and they just get lost in it! I tell them it's like learning to drive in an 18 wheeler with a manual transmission. Not really. You don't have to use all its features, they are neither necessary nor intrusive. E.g. I hardly know, let alone use more than 10% of its functionality. The only reasons I use it are very smart code completion, refactoring (rename variable/class/function/w…

I'd assume you are not working in education? Of course, PyCharm has great features and you don't need to use all of them when working with the IDE on your own as a novice coder. But as a teacher, you have a completely different problem: You need a really simple, easy to explain environment - no fuss, no unnecessary complexity. Students /will/ explore unused features on their own and get lost or mess up. There is simp…

> I'd assume you are not working in education?

Not right now, but I did.

> But as a teacher, you have a completely different problem: You need a really simple, easy to explain environment - no fuss, no unnecessary complexity.

Just tell them to ignore that complexity and only press this and this.

When I was a kid we were taught to code (simple games in C/WinAPI and C++/MFC) in Visual Studio 6 Enterprise Edition on Windows NT. Visual Studio (especially its enterprise editions) traditionally has tons of features which still seem extraterrestrial to me but you are safe to ignore them.

Just don't click those weird menu/toolbar items. Just create a project, write the code (with help of super-smart auto-completion) and press Run, use some conveniences (like refactoring and debugging) once you are told or read about those particular. Easy-peasy.

Re: Thonny: A hassle-free Python micro-IDE

#50

Post by abeyer »

protonfish wrote: post #26
jjice wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of mid-level editors out there. Sounds like Notepad++ and Sublime Text are up you alley. Also, it depends what you mean by bloated, but VS Code can be stripped down to work just like the two I listed above. Language servers aren't required by any means. If you're looking for sub 50MB ram usage, then stick to the two above and search for "Sublime Text alternative" and I'm sure you'll find more equival…

I've used Notepad++ and Sublime Text and like them a lot, but I could really use something that can run on a Raspberry Pi too. I guess I should have included that. Being able to use a single text editor across platforms would be terrific. I prefer Atom.io over VSCode for simplicity. It's much closer to working the way I want out-of-the-box. There's so much junk I have to disable in VSCode to get it where I like.

There's been talk about work on a build of sublime for arm64 -- I think if you poke around on their forums there was a link or contact to get a beta copy for licensed users.
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