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Choosing an IDE or text editor to code in:

By: Rob Andrews

You're going to need something good to write code in, such as an IDE or a text editor. For users of a popular operating system stemming from Redmond, there are a number of choices. (For users of a popular operating system associated with a penguin, you're probably already religiously devoted to some approach or other, so there's little point addressing you guys on this one. *snicker*) Seriously, though, since linux is my secondary programming environment, I'll gladly post the (brief, please) advice of some of the linux junkies out there on their favorite text editors. At the time I write this, the advice here is of particular interest to Windows users.

Note Tab isn't designed specifically for Python use, but is quite handy nonetheless, especially if you work with HTML, CSS and such. If you have a PC that isn't the latest and greatest, or if you just use Notepad, you might want to give it a glance.

ActiveState seems to love Python, because they add some interesting offerings as well. ActivePython is a full-blown Python distribution featuring PythonWin and other tools for Windows users (although it's not a Windows-specific distribution and can be installed on linux and Solaris). Komodo is a full-featured IDE for Python and Perl, but also supports HTML, C++, Java, XML, PHP, and quite a bit more. If you try to run it on a slow PC, be prepared for some serious wait time, but it's a pretty good IDE with some promise. Visual Python is their Visual Studio plug-in, but I have no experience with it.

IDEs designed for other languages entirely may be used with some success as well. I have found that Borland JBuilder 4 works just fine, although it has no Python-specific features.

IDLE, which ships with the standard Python distribution from python.org, is a common tool. If you are new to all this, you may find it educational to run the same script in IDLE, in PythonWin, and from the command prompt (DOS prompt).

Because it's extremely important to make sure your indentation is correct, just make sure that whatever editor you use doesn't wrap lines when they hit the right margin. If you have to type a rather long line of code, you don't want to have part of the line break off from the rest, leaving you puzzled about why the program doesn't work.

XHTML! by Rob Andrews