[Pythonmac-SIG] Fwd: Preferred IDE

[Russell E. Owen]

In article <438C8C95.3080208 at noaa.gov>,
 "Chris Barker" <Chris.Barker at noaa.gov> wrote:

> Jeffrey E. Forcier wrote:
> >> I also seem to remember BBEdit not having that  
> >>issue for some reason, but it wasn't worth the price tag for that  
> >>one tweak.
> 
> >> TextWrangler/BBEdit is an *excellent* editor, so be sure to try it out 
> >> yourself
> 
> Yes, it is, but it really doesn't do python indenting quite right. These 
> days, all python code really should be indented with 4 spaces, and while 
> you can set BBedit to put in 4 spaces when you hit the tab key, it 
> doesn't recognize those four spaces as a single level of indentation 
> when you want to delete them, requiring four hits of the backspace key.

I personally use tabs (of width 4 spaces), but I guess they're not 
allowed in the python library.

My main objection to TextWrangler/BBEdit is it's clumsy find/replace. 
There are too many mutually incompatible checkboxes for setting the mode 
(such as wrap or in selection), and those make it much too easy to get 
into a state where "replace all" only replaces from the cursor down 
(corrupting your file). And it's modal. Horrible. But otherwise they're 
pretty nice editors and TextWrangler is especially amazing considering 
it's free.

My favorite python IDE is WingIDE. Nice editor (that I think does the 
"lets fake tabs with spaces" indentation that I so despise). It includes 
a nice debugger, is very robust and has some of the best support you'll 
ever see. Free for noncommercial use and quite affordable for other use. 
The editor has an emacs mode for emacs lovers.

It's not perfect (I'd like nicer find/replace, better project management 
and svn integration), but it's very good and keeps getting better.

> I'm still looking for a nice modern, platform independent, general 
> purpose, fully customizable (preferably in Python) text editor. SPE is 
> heading that way, and Pepper (http://digitalwandering.com/) still has 
> promise.

Sounds useful. Good luck.

Pepper is by my main text editor; unfortunately, development died on it 
years ago.

Getting back to Mac editors, TextWrangler the other one I keep around. 
TextMate showed promise a year or two ago, but it had some really rough 
edges and I don't think it's coming along very quickly.

-- Russell