developerWorks: Review of Python IDEs

“Although I use a number of computers on a daily basis, running
OS/2, Linux, FreeBSD, and once every great while Windows, I find
that I do an increasing proportion of my work on my PowerBook
laptop; I really like the fact that I have a Unix core underlying a
polished GUI–and perhaps I like even more that I can write
articles like this one at a local cafe. In my experience, a large
proportion of the Python developers I chat with use this same
platform. One of the best things about developing on such a
Unix-like/X11 environment is that every Python application I create
works without changes once uploaded to my Linux-based Web servers
or distributed to Linux-based desktop users. (Unfortunately, in my
experience, Linux-based laptops still lag behind OS X ones).

“I should start with another confession. Even though I have
tried out many IDEs for many programming languages, over the years,
I always seem to return to using ‘favorite text editor plus
command-line’ when I actually want to get something done. It is
hard to sell me on form builders, code repositories, structured
application templating, code wizards, and all those other things
Then again, I wrote a book about text processing–not about GUI
development–and most of the programming work I have done in my
life has been far closer to the former than to the latter…”

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