[ale] Need help with a Python Script

[Michael B. Trausch]

On 11/17/2011 11:19 PM, Richard Bronosky wrote:
> No, Seriously. You should be using a REPL. Even if you just use the
> plain python REPL, it would give you feed back as you try each line.
> I've updated Steven's notes below...

Realizing that I might be lighting a little bit of a fire here...

I've done programming for the longest time in Emacs (which I seriously
love, especially when I need to do non-trivial refactorings that can be
mostly automated; I've actually recently used Emacs Lisp to save myself
a good 30 hours of programming work, and I only had to make minor manual
cleanups afterward).  However, I was looking around for something that
might make things better, and I believe that I have found something very
interesting.

There is an IDE called PyCharm, done by JetBrains.  (They also have
several other IDEs for different target environments.)  The IDE
understands Python and even has special support for Django, which is
really nifty.  It is, unfortunately, proprietary software, which means
that there are licensing questions.  However, their licensing model
seems very reasonable; for example, if you buy a personal license, you
can install it on all of your workstations without an issue (according
to them; I asked them last week to be sure), as long as you're only
using one of them at a time.  The personal licenses are non-transferable
as well.

Businesses can buy licenses using a different model, and they can even
run the whole kit-and-kaboodle from a network source so long as they
ensure that they don't go over the number of licenses that they have for
the software.

What really dragged me in is just how much the system conveys without
having to clutter up the display with gobs of text.  It isn't as
intelligent as it could be, but I am sure that they are constantly
improving it.  It also supports Python 3.

The other downside to it is that it is a Java application.  That said,
it doesn't seem to be a memory hog like Eclipse is.  PyCharm is built on
IntelliJ IDEA, which Java programmers on the list have likely heard of.

If you're working on Python code a lot it might be worth looking into.
It even has code completion support as part of its internal Python
console, so you can test ideas right there in the same window.  It's
really amazing if you, like I, have any sorts of issues typing for long
periods of time.  I've also found that I refer to the Python
documentation less, since it provide code completion suggestions I don't
usually have to go digging in Python's help files or documentation on
the Web site to find what it is I wanted to do.

(My biggest problem is that I can't keep all the standard libraries that
I know about straight in my head anymore, they've all become jumbled.
No matter what environment I'm in, I'm forever pulling up documentation
just to jog my memory.)

It would be nice if they had something like this for C that was also
cross-platform, though I can understand why they don't.

Anyway, I thought it would be something to point out.  I realize it's
not free software (well, they have free software versions of the core
IDE).  Also, if you're working on free software projects with it, they
will give you a license to use it for free.

	--- Mike

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 729 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20111118/e5a973a2/attachment-0001.bin