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As someone who's written / taught a CS intro class in Python. This is a nice addition to my tool belt. When I taught labs, we used a really crappy Python IDE th

As someone who's written / taught a CS intro class in Python. This is a nice addition to my tool belt. When I taught labs, we used a really crappy Python IDE that consistently froze and would delete student's code. I'm pretty partial to the VS Code and command line approach, myself. It teaches you basic command line stuff, which is good for anyone learning CS in the long run, and it teaches you how to NOT rely on an IDE for most of your syntax and semantics which is enormously helpful for those starting out (even though the learning curve is a bit steep).

emodendroket 10y ago
Not using an IDE just strikes me as an exercise in pointless masochism.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  When I tried to learn Python the first time, it was with vim. I would not recommend that path (VS Code user now).
  - rpedroso 10y ago
    I write python professionally and I use vim exclusively, but I have pylint + jedi plugins and could not imagine working without them. I'm also not convinced that depriving new programmers of real-time syntax checking actually helps them learn. Wouldn't immediate feedback help them memorize the correct syntax?
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      I learned working with Visual Studio and, yes, I think that helped. Even jsut being able to press "." and see what methods and properties were publicly available on something was helpful
  - flor1s 10y ago
    For me the path has mostly been BlueJ (Java) to Eclipse (Java) to Visual Studio (C#) to Eclipse (Android) to Intellij (Python/Android/JavaScript) to vim (JavaScript/Python). Some people try to turn vim into an IDE. Personally I like to use a real IDE when I feel like I need it (when I'm working in an unfamiliar codebase or when I need to debug). I love vim for writing small programs (command line utilities and client side JavaScript) and editing code (such as HTML, CSS, LaTeX). For single page web applications the best IDE for me is the browser in combination with a simple text editor.
- amyjess 10y ago
  For Java I'd agree, but for Python I've always preferred a good programmer's editor. I tend to use either Vim or Kate, depending on whether I'm in a CLI or a GUI mood. IDEs are so bulky and heavyweight, they just feel like they'd get in the way for Python. Especially JetBrains IDEs... they're just so slow and bloated (back when I did Java, I always preferred NetBeans over IntelliJ).
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    They're not bloated so much as full of useful features.
- bayonetz 10y ago
  Don't tell that to my Vim- and Sublime-loving coworkers...they'll look at you like you're some idiot who must not be able to program very well.
  - dvcrn 10y ago
    Vim and Sublime have great support for code completion. I've never met someone who writes code completely without any plugins
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      They do, but code completion is only the tip of the iceberg as far as IDE features go.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Yeah, that's a reaction of a lot of people, even when they're going and committing stuff like unused parameters an IDE could have easily caught.
  - jorvi 10y ago
    Sublime with Anaconda is pretty good..

emodendroket 10y ago

Not using an IDE just strikes me as an exercise in pointless masochism.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
When I tried to learn Python the first time, it was with vim. I would not recommend that path (VS Code user now).
- rpedroso 10y ago
  I write python professionally and I use vim exclusively, but I have pylint + jedi plugins and could not imagine working without them. I'm also not convinced that depriving new programmers of real-time syntax checking actually helps them learn. Wouldn't immediate feedback help them memorize the correct syntax?
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    I learned working with Visual Studio and, yes, I think that helped. Even jsut being able to press "." and see what methods and properties were publicly available on something was helpful
- flor1s 10y ago
  For me the path has mostly been BlueJ (Java) to Eclipse (Java) to Visual Studio (C#) to Eclipse (Android) to Intellij (Python/Android/JavaScript) to vim (JavaScript/Python). Some people try to turn vim into an IDE. Personally I like to use a real IDE when I feel like I need it (when I'm working in an unfamiliar codebase or when I need to debug). I love vim for writing small programs (command line utilities and client side JavaScript) and editing code (such as HTML, CSS, LaTeX). For single page web applications the best IDE for me is the browser in combination with a simple text editor.
amyjess 10y ago
For Java I'd agree, but for Python I've always preferred a good programmer's editor. I tend to use either Vim or Kate, depending on whether I'm in a CLI or a GUI mood. IDEs are so bulky and heavyweight, they just feel like they'd get in the way for Python. Especially JetBrains IDEs... they're just so slow and bloated (back when I did Java, I always preferred NetBeans over IntelliJ).
- emodendroket 10y ago
  They're not bloated so much as full of useful features.
bayonetz 10y ago
Don't tell that to my Vim- and Sublime-loving coworkers...they'll look at you like you're some idiot who must not be able to program very well.
- dvcrn 10y ago
  Vim and Sublime have great support for code completion. I've never met someone who writes code completely without any plugins
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    They do, but code completion is only the tip of the iceberg as far as IDE features go.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Yeah, that's a reaction of a lot of people, even when they're going and committing stuff like unused parameters an IDE could have easily caught.
- jorvi 10y ago
  Sublime with Anaconda is pretty good..