[Tutor] Configuring Emacs for Python development?

[boB Stepp]

Okay. Since I first joined this list I have played around (as time
permitted) with these editors/IDEs: PyCharm, Eclipse with PyDev,
Notepad++, Emacs, IDLE, PyScripter, IdleX, Sublime Text, and possibly
others. Of course, I have far from mastered any of them, but I think
that I have a sense of what each is capable of plus an idea of their
quirks/bugs. I have found that I do not entirely like any of them. I
suppose that is normal. Of the above list I like Notepad++, PyCharm
and Emacs the best. I have decided to eliminate Notepad++ due to it
being tied entirely to Windows and that it does not have the power of
Emacs. I liked PyCharm enough that when a special Earth Day sale came
out, I purchased a license for it. Eventually, I think that I will
gravitate to this if I start creating truly large projects, but I
cannot use it at work. And it seems to be overkill for just beginning
in Python. And I don't like the idea of creating a project for what
amounts to one-off scripts.

So I am led to Emacs. I like the ability to keep my fingers on the
keyboard for almost everything I might want to do. And PyCharm has an
ever-improving Emacs keybinding mode for when I do start using it. It
SHOULD be available at work on the two Solaris 10 systems I do most of
my work on, but I found out today that while the binary for Emacs
exists on both systems, not all of the dependencies are installed.
However, I am hoping to get permission to install a fresh, latest,
greatest version of Emacs on these systems, but even if I don't
Googling has revealed that Emacs can edit remote files via something
called Tramp. So it looks like I could install Emacs on my Windows PC
at work and edit from there. Likewise at home I am on Windows 7-64 bit
Pro and have already installed GNU Emacs 24.3.

When I last mentioned Emacs there was at least one offer to help me
optimally configure Emacs for Python development on Windows. I am
currently using version 3.3. This does not appear straightforward to
me. When I Google for this topic, people have taken different
approaches and I do not have the background or experience to judge
which would work best for me. Additionally this latest version of
Emacs apparently has made some improvements to the Python.el mode and
it is not clear to me what suggestions will or will not work with
this.

Anyone care to help me with this?

As always, thanks!
boB