What text editor is everyone using for Python

Roy Smith roy at panix.com
Tue May 26 09:22:29 EDT 2009


In article <mailman.741.1243325683.8015.python-list at python.org>,
 "Hendrik van Rooyen" <mail at microcorp.co.za> wrote:

> [syntax coloring] makes your screen look more busy as you type - for instance, if you
> type a " or a ' then it treats the rest of the file from that point on as 
> belonging to the same string you are about to start typing, and colours it
> all using the colour you have selected for displaying string literals.
> This is basically to make you seasick and to force you to type the closing
> quote immediately 

Good syntax coloring implementations have some hysteresis built in, to 
prevent transient things (like strings you haven't closed yet) from 
changing the entire file.  If you stop typing for a while, it then does a 
full update.  This avoids the problem above.

That being said, syntax coloring is like any other tool.  It's worth 
trying, but if you find it hinders you more than it helps, turn it off.  
Different strokes for different folks.

My pet peeve is syntax-aware editors which get things wrong.  For example, 
the version of emacs I'm using now doesn't parse this properly:

'''A triple-quoted string.  Some editors won't get this right'''

The solution is to change the outer quotes to double-quotes, but it annoys 
me when I have to change my code to appease a tool.



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