Revisiting Python IDEs
I bought a license for Wing IDE today after my trial period ran out a couple months ago. The two things that pushed me to get it were the snappy feel and the awesome autocompletion. After I started using it again, I was also reminded of the (truly) smart indenting and the great code navigation features.
I still have Komodo 3.5 of course. I will miss its Subversion integration, its toolbox (where I was able to write various quick utilities like launching PyChecker), and its ... hm, there probably should be a third thing, but I can't think of it. Sigh. I really want to like it, but it's just so slow. 3.5 is the fastest yet, but it still feels clunky to me. Plus its autocomplete is half-baked at best, consisting mostly of brain-dead "you typed this before" suggestions.
Also, unlike Ned, I can't stand SPE. It's got so much icon furniture. I like the spartan look of Komodo and Wing in this regard. I don't like a bunch of visual trash on the screen when I'm trying to code. I also haven't ever been able to get a hold of a stable version either. It does have neat points like the PyChecker integration and UML designer, but I can't stand Ugly.
Ned also likes PyDev in Eclipse. Bleah. It feels bolted on. I have to constantly descend through menus to find anything. It barely feels better than running SciTE, and that's not saying much for an IDE.
Boa Constructor also has all the attraction of a baboon's rear-end. The only thing I'd want to extract from it is the BicycleRepairMan refactoring features. (I have to admit, I did make a half-hearted attempt to call BRM from a Komodo macro, but I couldn't even get a working version of BRM from SourceForge.)
Well, this turned into a tirade. :) I'm going back to write some more Python in Wing instead of continuing to rant.
Update: I thought of the third thing for Komodo. I miss the debugger. Wing's debugger is lame: no tooltips to display variable values, funky exceptions being thrown inside Tkinter, and somewhat indeterminate behavior on certain breakpoints. To be fair, Komodo has the breakpoint issue too sometimes -- just a lot less often. Bottom line is, I'm back in Komodo for my current program to get it debugged. It's a shame that I really need the functionality of both, but at least I have them available.
I still have Komodo 3.5 of course. I will miss its Subversion integration, its toolbox (where I was able to write various quick utilities like launching PyChecker), and its ... hm, there probably should be a third thing, but I can't think of it. Sigh. I really want to like it, but it's just so slow. 3.5 is the fastest yet, but it still feels clunky to me. Plus its autocomplete is half-baked at best, consisting mostly of brain-dead "you typed this before" suggestions.
Also, unlike Ned, I can't stand SPE. It's got so much icon furniture. I like the spartan look of Komodo and Wing in this regard. I don't like a bunch of visual trash on the screen when I'm trying to code. I also haven't ever been able to get a hold of a stable version either. It does have neat points like the PyChecker integration and UML designer, but I can't stand Ugly.
Ned also likes PyDev in Eclipse. Bleah. It feels bolted on. I have to constantly descend through menus to find anything. It barely feels better than running SciTE, and that's not saying much for an IDE.
Boa Constructor also has all the attraction of a baboon's rear-end. The only thing I'd want to extract from it is the BicycleRepairMan refactoring features. (I have to admit, I did make a half-hearted attempt to call BRM from a Komodo macro, but I couldn't even get a working version of BRM from SourceForge.)
Well, this turned into a tirade. :) I'm going back to write some more Python in Wing instead of continuing to rant.
Update: I thought of the third thing for Komodo. I miss the debugger. Wing's debugger is lame: no tooltips to display variable values, funky exceptions being thrown inside Tkinter, and somewhat indeterminate behavior on certain breakpoints. To be fair, Komodo has the breakpoint issue too sometimes -- just a lot less often. Bottom line is, I'm back in Komodo for my current program to get it debugged. It's a shame that I really need the functionality of both, but at least I have them available.
posted by Brandon Corfman at
10:39 PM
2 Comments:
Wow... that was a tirade. But it was probably needed. Nobody really seems to "get it". Nice of you to mention my old stand-by "SciTE". I still use it for odds and ends and I definitely appreciate being able to easily install it in Linux as well. I also use the simplified derivitave "Notepad2" for my semi-default text editor.
You're right, if Komodo had better auto-complete (and if it wasn't such a dog) they'd really have something. But honestly, I keep using PythonWin since it still fits my style of Python coding. I test out something in the shell and by accidental or purposeful bug, the shell auto-completes carry over into my code files. It's not great but it gets me by until I find something really cool.
By
ScW, At
9:07 AM
PyDev has became rather useful - debugging, BRM/refactoring, autocomplete, help, interactive console, etc. Of all the IDEs for Python I've been testing, PyDev+Eclipse [and a bunch of available SCM plugins] IMHO outrule the rest.
By
kre, At
7:14 AM
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