The best platform and editor for Python

[Cameron Laird]

In article <1183630730.251890.238900 at m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
Kay Schluehr  <kay.schluehr at gmx.net> wrote:
>On Jul 3, 8:12 pm, cla... at lairds.us (Cameron Laird) wrote:
>
>> Python is simply easier than C++; you might
>> well find that a debugger, for example, doesn't feel as essential
>> as it is for you with C++.
>
>That's what I love most about the Python community. Whenever there is
>just a non-standard, platform-dependent or crappy implementation of a
>feature you get told that you don't need it. When printf was good for
>little David print is good enough for me.
>
>Among the first things I examine about an IDE ( for Python ) is the
>integration of a good REPL and how well recursive functions can be
>debugged ( yes, I know, Pythonistas can't recurse and so it is not
>recommended as well but sometimes ... )
>

You've made factual claims with which I can't agree.

If I understand you correctly, Pythoneers (to the exclusion of other
software workers?) are prone to misrepresent lacunae as irrelevant.
Perhaps I've done so in this case; perhaps I characteristically do
so myself, and need to examine my own judgment more closely.  It
simply is not true, though, and even slanderous, to leave the
impression that the community as a whole wallows "fat and dumb" in
its rut of missing features.  Py2exe, pyexpect, pylint, ElementTree,
and many, many other Python facilities we now take for granted didn't
exist at one time, and were recognized as important lacks.  Old
comp.lang.python threads make this clear.

In writing this, I don't mean to minimize at all the merit of the
specific individuals who authored ElementTree, pylint, and so on.

You seem also to be saying that all Python debuggers are "non-standard,
platform-dependent or crappy".  Is that truly your assessment of pdb
<URL: http://docs.python.org/lib/module-pdb.html >?  Or are you focused
on the IDEs <URL:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironments >, and
really see them all that way?

Anyway, I repeat my claim:  I recommend to the original poster that he
consider learning Python in a style that's qualitatively different--
"lighter"--than his experience with C++.