[Tutor] Good Text Editor/IDE for Python

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 09:12:24PM -0300, Juan Christian wrote:
> I've been using PyCharm to code in Python but it seems a bit "overpowered"
> for this task, and there are some annoying bugs. I used Sublime Text 2 in
> the past, but it seems to be dead now (last update was JUN/2013), so I
> don't really know any good options.
> 
> What do you guys use to code?

I wouldn't be too concerned about the lack of updates to Sublime. 
Perhaps there are no updates because there are no bugs to fix, code to 
remove, or requested features to add. If it works, it works.

You don't say what operating system you're using. I use Linux, and as 
far as I am concerned, the best IDE for Linux is Linux itself:

http://blog.sanctum.geek.nz/series/unix-as-ide/
http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/ide-culture-vs-unix-philosophy/

My IDE is:

- A good programmer's editor, ideally one that supports a tabbed
  interface. I normally use kate (from KDE 3, not KDE 4) or geany, or
  at a pinch kwrite although it's not tabbed.

- A web browser, for looking up documentation and doing web searches.

- A good tabbed terminal application. Konsole from KDE is my 
  preferred choice, but just about any one will do.

In the terminal, I'll open anything up to half a dozen tabs. One for 
running source control (git or hg) and other utilities, another for 
running the application I'm writing and performing tests, and at least 
one interactive Python session for trying out small snippets and looking 
up interactive help.

Just recently, I've customised my interactive Python with a powerful set 
of tab completion commands, similar to that provided by IPython. While 
typing, if I hit tab, it will try to complete the current variable, 
function, module or file name. I don't know how I programmed without it 
all these years :-)



-- 
Steven