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Spyder – a free and open source scientific environment written in Python

386 points by jka 6y ago

samuell 6y ago
Spyder is great. With all the complexity of python dev environments (virtual env managers, package managers and then the IDE), it is nice to at least be able to provide users with a well functioning self-contained IDE that just works out of the box.
- _coveredInBees 6y ago
  I couldn't agree more. While I have moved on from Spyder onto Pycharm for many years now, Spyder will always have a soft spot in my heart for being a great first IDE that brought so many great quality-of-life features and replicated and surpassed the MATLAB experience of prototyping and developing code/algorithms in an interactive manner. Also, I know ccordoba is here on HN. If you read this, know that you have immense respect from me for tirelessly maintaining Spyder for all these years (I started using it in 2009)
  - ccordoba12 6y ago
    Thanks a lot your kind words! I'm really glad you enjoyed using Spyder and have fond memories of it.
VectorLock 6y ago
The link to the 'editor' page 404s. All the other stuff in here sounds pretty nice, but I'm curious how the editor experience is (or if I can use something like vim instead)
- tomrod 6y ago
  It's okay. It's a lot like RStudio and Matlab. I consider a bridge between Notebook work and IDE work.
- lytefm 6y ago
  A vim plugin exists, but it's very limited.
  - ccordoba12 6y ago
    Right, we haven't had resources to invest on it, so it's been developed by the community. It'd be nice if we could use Neovim for text manipulations and show what comes back from it in our editor. If only days had 36 hours...
    - mkl 6y ago
      That would be amazing. I like Spyder a lot, but for big/complex editing tasks I sometimes have to switch to Vim.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  > The link to the 'editor' page 404s We just fixed this. Sorry for the inconvenience.
mslip 6y ago
Always enjoyed spyder for its variable explorer.
x32n23nr 6y ago
The RStudio equivalent for Python. Last used this so many years ago, and from the screenshots little seems to have changed.
- RA_Fisher 6y ago
  RStudio supports Python these days. I use it daily and it’s really enjoyable. I think they ought to call it DataStudio bc it’s multilanguage. https://rstudio.com/solutions/r-and-python/ https://rstudio.com/solutions/r-and-python/
  - RA_Fisher 6y ago
    This is a better link: https://rstudio.github.io/reticulate/ https://rstudio.github.io/reticulate/
ian-g 6y ago
I understand why Spyder. But they could also have called it spIDEr
- omarhaneef 6y ago
  pIDE PYper (just thought of that!)
  - ccordoba12 6y ago
    Haha, the original project Spyder is based on was called Pydee
bfjckgkgnt 6y ago
If you use this, you are a junior dev - embarrassing
- elefanten 6y ago
  Sounds like a junior dev attitude.
- rscho 6y ago
  If you say things like this, you don't belong on HN - embarrassing
- mmmBacon 6y ago
  Guess I’m junior then. I learned how to code via scientific coding so I love Spyder for its simplicity. When I want to work deeply on a difficult problem and want to quickly flesh out ideas it’s my go to because it sandboxes really well and I can iterate much faster in it. I use more advanced IDE when integrating the code I developed in Spyder into a larger code base. I’m sure many will criticize my workflow but I’ve tried doing other ways and this works best for me and I write less buggy code this way.
  - andi999 6y ago
    Which advanced IDE? Eclipse?
    - mmmBacon 6y ago
      I am really liking VSCode as my IDE in part because I can almost use it like I use Spyder. I used Eclipse years ago and am neutral on it. I can use it if I need to. Just wouldn’t be my go to. I can say same for PyCharm; it’s very powerful but me and PyCharm never really jelled (lol!).
  - ajford 6y ago
    Ignore anyone criticizing your workflow. Tools like Spyder and Jupyter can be great when working with datasets in a way that IDEs aren't quite suited for. Variable explorers and integrated charting/plotting can be fantastic for visualizing and understanding your data. Cells in Jupyter are great for quickly iterating on data cleaning code. When I was part of a scientific applications team at a past employer (state agency), we used Jupyter heavily while developing the core code for the data processing pipelines. We were reading and processing data from instruments based on (bad) docs and notes from a former employee who reverse-engineered the format, so there was a lot of edge-case finding and testing. The notebooks fleshed out with comments and notes in Markdown upon completion and were saved within our repo as interactive documentation, demonstrating the more complicated processing steps in a far more approachable fashion.
zwaps 6y ago
The variable explorer is much better than the one PyCharm has, for example. Of course, Pycharm has many other tools and a much better interface (Spyders scaling is grgrgrgrgr). But for scientific data work? Spyder is great!
- pyromine 6y ago
  Oh boy, I can't even get spyder to move between two of my monitors because it always complains about scaling and then I can't get the popup to consistently not show up
  - ccordoba12 6y ago
    Would you prefer to hide it forever? We could add an option for that, but scaling could fail in some circumstances.
    - pyromine 6y ago
      I would 100% rather hide it forever
greatgoat420 6y ago
I like spyder a lot for the variable explorer, which makes it feel more like Matlab. However the constant bothering about installing Kite got annoying. Unfortunately there isn't a way to use Kite and have it not constantly annoy you about upgrading to the enterprise edition. If Kite had a no ads plan for like ~ $10 a year it would make a lot more sense to integrate it in spyder.
- generalizations 6y ago
  Not to be trite, but there is a github repo and the license is MIT. I'd guess it's possible to find the relevant nag code (possibly in its own github commit), strip it out, and recompile. Edit. maybe this is what you're talking about? https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/commit/6b602af50f632cf669c922591bf140b4d4051875 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/commit/6b602af50f632cf6...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - fock 6y ago
    but why is that even there? I guess that's just another reason to stay with emacs...
    - detaro 6y ago
      Sponsoring/buying things in exchange for kite promotion seems to be their MO - there was quite a bit of noise about the more brazen instances of it a while back when the used existing editor extensions to push their product or telemetry code (see e.g. https://theoutline.com/post/1953/how-a-vc-funded-company-is-undermining-the-open-source-community https://theoutline.com/post/1953/how-a-vc-funded-company-is-... and HN discussions about "kite")
    - ccordoba12 6y ago
      Well, this is the thing: code completion in Python is not a a simple task and we've struggled for years to improve it. Now we support the Language Server Protocol (designed by Microsoft for VSCode), but still things are not great, i.e. there are many things that can't be completed by Jedi, specially for scientific libraries. So, thanks to Kite's software, we implemented a client for it and now lightly promote it to our users, to offer them a possibility that works better, but it's completely optional. We also consulted our community before adding Kite integration and they were favorable to it, that's why we decided to proceed with the idea: https://twitter.com/Spyder_IDE/status/1138466325532217346 https://twitter.com/Spyder_IDE/status/1138466325532217346
superbcarrot 6y ago
Can I get the following behavior from Spyder (last time I tried I couldn't find a way) - for some keyboard shortcut like Cmd/Ctrl + Enter: - the shortcut sends the selected code to the terminal (this is possible) - if I hit the shortcut when nothing is selected, the line where the cursor currently is gets sent to the terminal and the cursor moves to the next line of code - if the cursor is at the beginning of a block of code like an if-statement or a loop, the whole statement is sent to the terminal and the cursor moves to after the statement RStudio has this behaviour by default, I find it very convenient and I haven't been able to replicate it in other environments.
- dplavery92 6y ago
  That sort of workflow sounds a lot like what you would get from a notebook like Jupyter, albeit you would have explicit block of code ("cells") to be executed together. It looks like Spyder now features Jupyter Notebook integration as well: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder-notebook https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder-notebook
- navbaker 6y ago
  You can define code cells in Spyder and execute them with a shortcut. I’m on an older version, but for me it’s “# In[]” to start a code block, then shift-enter to execute. -Edit: to clarify, that string starts a code block, which continues until end of file or you designate another block. Executing the current line or the selected lines is just F9.
- omarhaneef 6y ago
  As a sibling points out, I use F9. I prefer the control enter because I am used to enter to execute, but it is fine.
- kleiba 6y ago
  RStudio has this behaviour by default, I find it very convenient and I haven't been able to replicate it in other environments. Certainly you can replicate that in Emacs?!
  - deleted 6y ago
gspr 6y ago
I'm sorry, I'm sure Spyder has lots of merits (and I'm sure the devs are wonderful people), but I've spent so much time fixing fellow academics' Python problems that were in the end rooted in "I don't know what I'm doing, so I installed this Spyder thing and it has now taken over every aspect of Python on my computer" that I feel a visceral negative reaction to the name in my body. Not Spyder's fault, of course, but nonetheless.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  (Spyder maintainer here) I don't understand your comment. Spyder is like any other regular Python package, so it can't take over your computer. We have some customizations to run code, but that's to provide a better experience to users.
- lytefm 6y ago
  Things can get very messy when installing Spyder via pip and then trying to upgrade stuff. Distutils tends to screw these updates up. I've nuked my local Python packages recently due to that mess and made a clean reinstall, but I guess that's not what you'd like to do if you have many Python packages other than Spyder installed.
  - ccordoba12 6y ago
    Agreed, installing Spyder with pip can lead to a lot of headaches. That's why we don't recommend to use it and suggest Anaconda/conda instead. But that solution also became problematic during the last couple of years (conda is too slow or throws back a huge dependency errors). That's why we decided to create our own, self-contained installers for Windows and macOS: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 Since they are completely isolated and don't come with pip, they can't be broken. And you can connect them to other Python environments by following these instructions: http://docs.spyder-ide.org/current/faq.html#using-existing-environment http://docs.spyder-ide.org/current/faq.html#using-existing-e...
ct0 6y ago
I tried to use spyder on some projects, but the constant crashing without restoration of my work got old very quickly.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  This was fixed in Spyder 4 by providing autosave functionality to our editor. You should give it a try again.
- lytefm 6y ago
  I've been using Spyder for my whole DS master and rarely experiences crashes on Ubuntu, unless I've managed to go OOM. That being said, I've been using Spyder 4 via pip since the 4.0.0 release while Spyder 3 was still the default on conda. Autosave is definitely useful.
munk-a 6y ago
Please use carefully if you have aracnopyhopia. The naming seems pretty poor for me given that I'd assume that spyder would be a webcrawler written in python.
bluesmoon 6y ago
It often causes a double-take for me when I see projects on HN with the same name as projects I once worked on. Way back in time, maybe around 1998, a friend an I worked on a steganography tool that we called Spyder. I don't remember where it was published or under what license (probably freeware), but the algorithm was incorporated into Hide4PGP (http://www.heinz-repp.onlinehome.de/Hide4PGP.htm http://www.heinz-repp.onlinehome.de/Hide4PGP.htm), and we stopped work on it. This post just caused a bit of nostalgia. I can still remember my co-developer taking a break jamming on a bass guitar while we tried to figure out the striping problem (the solution was to compress the data to increase entropy first).
- myhf 6y ago
  There's also a recent video game named Spyder https://www.spyderthegame.com/ https://www.spyderthegame.com/
dunefox 6y ago
Every link at the bottom is invalid (404)...
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Fixed now, sorry for the inconvenience.
nether 6y ago
Jupiter Notebook is Mathematica, Spyder is MATLAB.
lend000 6y ago
Spyder is great. More minimalist than Pycharm, but it actually allows you to run multiple Python consoles in parallel, which is strangely absent from Pycharm.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  I generally find it really hard to use full on IDEs like PyCharm for doing more investigative/research kinda work in Python, which is where Jupyter/Colab/Spyder are great at. It's just a very different flow, creating a large application versus doing analysis/research.
  - jonnycomputer 6y ago
    Pycharm Professional edition has a Scientific project type, which I was hoping someone has experience with.
  - alexchantavy 6y ago
    I like to do a bit of a mix: write the library functions in Pycharm, then import and call them in Jupyter Lab. I used to try to do implementation too in Jupyter Lab but that got messy very quickly.
  - _coveredInBees 6y ago
    Personally, I can't stand Jupyter for research because the introspection capabilities are so poor and limited compared to working in something like Spyder, Pycharm or VsCode. Moreover, I much prefer having interactive matplotlib plots for data exploration in a Qt/Gtk window rather than the inline matplotlib plots in Jupyter (though you can sometimes get it work to pop up windows for plots, but you still have a more interactive plotting experience in Pycharm/Spyder/VsCode) As someone who loves Spyder and used it a lot many years back, I've had no trouble doing all my scientific/algorithm prototyping in Pycharm while benefiting immensely from the astoundingly superior code intelligence/auto-complete/type-hinting in Pycharm. There is also a "Code Cell" plugin you can download for Pycharm that basically gets you to parity with Code-cells in Spyder/Matlab. For me, the excellent Python shell in Pycharm that supports multiline copy-paste, tab completion, and function-signature overlays makes prototyping algorithms and ideas much faster. That paired with the excellent history browser in Pycharm lets me easily grab relevant bits of code and promote them into a script or function and go from there. And then if you are trying to debug any algorithm, Pycharm is far superior on that front and I am far more efficient at debugging and fixing problems in Pycharm than in something like Vscode (though I do recall Spyder's debugger being pretty decent since it supports integration with IPython) There is a steep learning curve with Pycharm initially, but imo it works just fine (and for me at least, much better) in comparison to other things like Spyder/Jupyter. I would definitely recommend Spyder to most non-software engineer Python users, especially if they are in Data science. Nothing by <3 for Spyder's awesome data viewer widgets.
vsskanth 6y ago
I really like spyder for it's Matlab like IDE but I wish they handled virtual environments better. I also don't like that I have to install their kernel in the venv to use it.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Hey, thanks for the feedback! We plan to improve our support for virtual environments in the future. Also, it's really necessary to install spyder-kernels in every env to make the variable explorer and debugger work for it. However, that could be by us handling virtual envs and installing spyder-kernels on behalf of the users.
  - vsskanth 6y ago
    That would work too. Thank you
jonnycomputer 6y ago
Has anybody used Pycharm's Scientific project type for data analysis?
- cheptsov 6y ago
  Hey, a PM of PyCharm here. Justin case someone will find it useful and relevant. Our team is currently working on a brand new IDE (based on PyCharm) for data scientists. A big part of what we're doing is convenient support for Jupyter notebooks within the IDE. This new IDE is currently under development but already provides the support for notebooks similar to how the native web Jupyter notebooks work – cells and outputs under each cell. The IDE's functionality will include SQL, Jupyter, Python, and R support. If you'd like to try the early EAP builds of this new IDE with the new notebooks support, please fill out this short form: https://pages.jetbrains.com/pycharm-data-science-insiders https://pages.jetbrains.com/pycharm-data-science-insiders Once you’ve confirmed your participation, you’ll get a detailed email with instructions on how to download the early builds and details about how to share your feedback. Will be also happy to answer questions if any.
  - jonnycomputer 6y ago
    Interesting! Curious as to whether you'd say the approach you are taking is closer to Jupyter's binary cell approach or RStudio's Notebook's text-based approach. Thanks!
    - cheptsov 6y ago
      Our current approach to is very similar to the native Jupyter experience where notebook contains multiple separate cells. You can manipulate these cells with shortcuts or mouse. It looks very similar to Jupyter or JupyterLab. At the same time, if you open a Python script, you'll be able to use cell delimiters (aka `#%%`).
      - lytefm 6y ago
        Good to know, I'll always prefer working with cell delimiters like in Spyder over working with Jupyter Notebooks. I've also tried out PyCharm Professional, but the experience with cells and iPython was just worse for me than in Spyder - so I'm only using PyCharm for refactoring right now. I think the main problem was that errors/results from cmdstanpy would simply cause PyCharm to crash/hang instead of getting handled properly like in Spyder.
zupreme 6y ago
I use the Anaconda-packaged version of Spyder on a daily basis. Great product, although I can never seem to get the IDE updates to consistently work within that environment. Nevertheless it is my favorite IDE for Python.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  You could consider using our new installers, if you're on Windows or macOS, to avoid that: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 Then you can connect them to your conda envs, as described here: http://docs.spyder-ide.org/current/faq.html#using-existing-environment http://docs.spyder-ide.org/current/faq.html#using-existing-e...
  - zupreme 6y ago
    Thanks!
  - analog31 6y ago
    Does the installer work with WinPython? Also, thanks for a great tool!
    - ccordoba12 6y ago
      Sure, it works with any Python installation/environment that has spyder-kernels installed.
      - analog31 6y ago
        Thanks. So far, pip install --upgrade spyder has worked with no hiccups on WinPython, but it's good to know there's an alternative.
- lytefm 6y ago
  I'm not much of an Anaconda fan, but installing Spyder as a user package (pip install -U spyder) has always worked out well for me. After an upgrade, all I've ever needed to do was to upgrade to the spyder-kernels in my venv. Spyder is such a great tool and much more useful than Jupyter Notebooks for explorative DS work, imho. Thank a lot for maintaining it, Carlos. I don't mind the kite installer - but I've tried it out and found the completions pretty useless.
civilized 6y ago
The last time I tried Spyder, I think around 2015-2016, it really struggled with large datasets. A lot of pausing and hanging that wouldn't happen at an IPython prompt. Is that better now?
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Yes, we definitely improved on that front. Spyder should be more responsive now. You should give it a try with our new installers for Windows and macOS, which save you the trouble of installing Anaconda: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1
refactor_master 6y ago
Eh, Streamlit and PyCharm is a much more powerful combination IMO. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something about variable explorer always felt like training wheels to me.
- greatgoat420 6y ago
  Because it is super manly to guess at what the 20th element of an eigenvector is? Or you like super long printouts of data where it is hard to figure out what the index is? Matlab has one for a reason, and it is because very often you want a quick look at your often gigantic data.
  - _coveredInBees 6y ago
    Lol, that got a chuckle out of me. Yeah, it boggles my mind that someone would be disdainful of something as useful as a good variable viewer in an IDE. While it is certainly pretty essential when you are working with data or prototyping algorithms, I also do a lot of software engineering and library development in Python and I still find it *extremely* useful in Pycharm when prototyping code, and especially when debugging. Like sure, I could drop into pdb and tediously work through printing things out (and good luck if you are printing out ndarrays or large dictionaries or wanting to look through instance variables for an instance in your local execution context) and take 4X longer to figure out why something isn't working, or just in a quick glance figure out exactly what the issue is. I guess I'll continue being a n00b developer happily relying on a variable explorer whenever available :o).
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  I respectfully disagree. The variable explorer allows to check what variables you have declared and how they change with changes in your code. This is critical for scientific computing because you're constantly interacting with data (i.e. reading, cleaning, plotting and analyzing it), so having a dedicated pane for it is a great advantage.
  - ajford 6y ago
StreamBright 6y ago
Is this written in Python? What does it use for the display?
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Yes, it's written in PyQt and we integrate with a lot of libraries in the Scientific Python ecosystem (Pandas, Sympy, IPython, Matplotlib, Scipy, Cython, etc).
tobmlt 6y ago
As someone who has used spyder everyday for years, it’s really getting in my way lately. Important caveat: I’ve just recently upgraded from some really old versions to the latest spyder. Now it throws off my work flow by continuously tripping code hints or suggestions or whatever. When I try and click into the interpreter I find now I’d better click two or three times instead of one — to subvert the type hint that is sure to push cursor focus back to the code. If I don’t do that I am suddenly typing into the code window that which was intended for the interpreter. It sucks and I need to find out how to fix it. Surely there is something I can do in settings to chill the hinting/or-whatever out.
- lambda_obrien 6y ago
  I've been having that issue with vscode; sometimes the tooltips get in the way and I have to click several times to get my cursor in the code. I think the tooltips should be click through.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Yes, you can disable hovers and hints completely. For that you need to go to the menu Tools > Preferences and then Completion and linting > Introspection and disable there "Show calltips" and "Enable hover hints".
  - tobmlt 6y ago
    Thanks! I’ll try turning off “everything” and see how it goes. — I am hoping to find some middle ground where I can still make use of some features. I’ll play around with it some more. I’d gotten discouraged by stack overflow discussion of similar issues where turning off various features wouldn’t stick.
    - tobmlt 6y ago
      Replying to my own comment because there’s more to it. I’m paying more attention to the issue, and sometimes Spyder just context switches, quite often with very annoying timing, and often for no reason I can pinpoint. It just wants to be in one window right after I click in a different window. This does not make easy to diagnose or complain about, but it is driving me away rapidly.
dang 6y ago
If curious see also! 2018 (a bit) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16232940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16232940 2013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6622156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6622156 2014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7042369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7042369 2009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=889615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=889615
tr1ll10nb1ll 6y ago
I loved using this until before I tried using PyCharm and VSCode and switched to them instead due to irregular updates while using Spyder within Anaconda on my Mac. Also, the UI started feeling a bit in my way but that's just me I think.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Yeah, updates in Anaconda can be bumpy. That's why we decided to create our own installers for Windows and Mac: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1
Bedon292 6y ago
If you regularly use Spyder, what is it specifically that you like about it? I had pretty much thought it was just a tool for people who normally work in R and Matlab to ease into python. Which I totally understand, but is there more to it? It is purely for scientific programming, or do people use it for other things too? Like would you ever write a Django app with it? What am I missing out on by not using it? For my normal use, I am not seeing anything I can't do in VSCode. Is it worth checking out though?
- alanbernstein 6y ago
  I haven't used it, but I immediately decided to try it out, just in the hope that it will make managing matplotlib windows a little more convenient.
- perpetualpatzer 6y ago
  Outside of scientific computing, I typically go to Spyder on one-off scripts and smaller projects. I like Spyder over PyCharm for smaller projects because there's less startup cost and the code cells functionality is handy for the "edit and run this part until it does what I want" style of coding, which makes the bulk of my time in small projects. For bigger projects, PyCharm's refactoring, commit diffing, code regions, and formatting are enough better to be worth the fuss. As a rule of thumb, if I'm going to bother to set up a dedicated environment / git repo / file structure / test suite, I'll typically use PyCharm, else Spyder.
  - lytefm 6y ago
    > and the code cells functionality is handy for the "edit and run this part until it does what I want" style of coding, which makes the bulk of my time in small projects. Yes, I love this „quick and dirty” interactive style within Spyder too, but switch to PyCharm when I need to refactor, work with larger project or test. Sometimes I'd switch multiple times per day for the same project, so having a more Spyder-like DS tool under development at JetBrains seems to be good news.
- analog31 6y ago
  I admit that I use it mainly because of all the nice code checking. I've been programming for 40 years, mostly "scientific," but have never made effective use of an IDE. So this is a new experience for me. With the guidance of a couple of colleagues, I'm bring myself up to date on writing quality code.
eigenvalue 6y ago
I'm a huge fan of Spyder. I have tried PyCharm and found myself much less productive. I think it's the integration of the variable explorer, and how you can easily look into tabular data or lists. I wish the updating process were more seamless, without requiring installers, similar to how VSCode or Chrome handle updates.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. That's planned for this year, i.e. to have auto-updating and signed installers (at least on Mac). So stay tuned.
Mewtwo 6y ago
Saw this thread and instantly installed Spyder on my Windows PC. My display is 4k 15 inch with 250% scale. The fontsize of UI didn't scale and is too small. Well, like many other Windows apps that can't handle high DPI well, I'll check later when it's polished.
- tryptophan 6y ago
  I use spyder on my 4k 15 inch display. It works 100% fine. I think I may have set scaling in the options to "auto" or "hidpi".
  - Mewtwo 6y ago
    Thank you! I only opened the software once and didn't check settings. Enabled high DPI and it worked. Wondering why they doesn't enable it by default.
    - ccordoba12 6y ago
      Because it'd make everything look huge in non-high DPI displays. It's a trade off, but most people still use them.
kernelsanderz 6y ago
I love the idea of Spyder. Particularly as a replacement/alternative to Jupyter notebook style workflows. The last time I tried to use Spyder to connect to a remote kernel, there was no way to interrupt a remote kernel. I understand that this was an inherent issue with the kernel APIs (Jupyter has it's own watchdog process that is responsible for sending signals to the kernels it monitors). Is this workflow better supported now? (ie. using Jupyer to connect to a remote kernel that has GPUs?, and having an easy way to interrupt / restart the remote kernel if it hangs?
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Unfortunately we haven't had time to address that, but it's high in our TODO list. We hope to do it this year.
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dartharva 6y ago
I love Spyder's UI but it's way too slow to load on a computer with an HDD.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  We're working to improve that

386 points by jka 6y ago

Spyder is great. With all the complexity of python dev environments (virtual env managers, package managers and then the IDE), it is nice to at least be able to provide users with a well functioning self-contained IDE that just works out of the box.

_coveredInBees 6y ago
I couldn't agree more. While I have moved on from Spyder onto Pycharm for many years now, Spyder will always have a soft spot in my heart for being a great first IDE that brought so many great quality-of-life features and replicated and surpassed the MATLAB experience of prototyping and developing code/algorithms in an interactive manner. Also, I know ccordoba is here on HN. If you read this, know that you have immense respect from me for tirelessly maintaining Spyder for all these years (I started using it in 2009)
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Thanks a lot your kind words! I'm really glad you enjoyed using Spyder and have fond memories of it.

VectorLock 6y ago

The link to the 'editor' page 404s. All the other stuff in here sounds pretty nice, but I'm curious how the editor experience is (or if I can use something like vim instead)

tomrod 6y ago
It's okay. It's a lot like RStudio and Matlab. I consider a bridge between Notebook work and IDE work.
lytefm 6y ago
A vim plugin exists, but it's very limited.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Right, we haven't had resources to invest on it, so it's been developed by the community. It'd be nice if we could use Neovim for text manipulations and show what comes back from it in our editor. If only days had 36 hours...
  - mkl 6y ago
    That would be amazing. I like Spyder a lot, but for big/complex editing tasks I sometimes have to switch to Vim.
ccordoba12 6y ago
> The link to the 'editor' page 404s We just fixed this. Sorry for the inconvenience.

mslip 6y ago

Always enjoyed spyder for its variable explorer.

x32n23nr 6y ago

The RStudio equivalent for Python. Last used this so many years ago, and from the screenshots little seems to have changed.

RA_Fisher 6y ago
RStudio supports Python these days. I use it daily and it’s really enjoyable. I think they ought to call it DataStudio bc it’s multilanguage. https://rstudio.com/solutions/r-and-python/ https://rstudio.com/solutions/r-and-python/
- RA_Fisher 6y ago
  This is a better link: https://rstudio.github.io/reticulate/ https://rstudio.github.io/reticulate/

ian-g 6y ago

I understand why Spyder. But they could also have called it spIDEr

omarhaneef 6y ago
pIDE PYper (just thought of that!)
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Haha, the original project Spyder is based on was called Pydee

bfjckgkgnt 6y ago

If you use this, you are a junior dev - embarrassing

elefanten 6y ago
Sounds like a junior dev attitude.
rscho 6y ago
If you say things like this, you don't belong on HN - embarrassing
mmmBacon 6y ago
Guess I’m junior then. I learned how to code via scientific coding so I love Spyder for its simplicity. When I want to work deeply on a difficult problem and want to quickly flesh out ideas it’s my go to because it sandboxes really well and I can iterate much faster in it. I use more advanced IDE when integrating the code I developed in Spyder into a larger code base. I’m sure many will criticize my workflow but I’ve tried doing other ways and this works best for me and I write less buggy code this way.
- andi999 6y ago
  Which advanced IDE? Eclipse?
  - mmmBacon 6y ago
    I am really liking VSCode as my IDE in part because I can almost use it like I use Spyder. I used Eclipse years ago and am neutral on it. I can use it if I need to. Just wouldn’t be my go to. I can say same for PyCharm; it’s very powerful but me and PyCharm never really jelled (lol!).
- ajford 6y ago
  Ignore anyone criticizing your workflow. Tools like Spyder and Jupyter can be great when working with datasets in a way that IDEs aren't quite suited for. Variable explorers and integrated charting/plotting can be fantastic for visualizing and understanding your data. Cells in Jupyter are great for quickly iterating on data cleaning code. When I was part of a scientific applications team at a past employer (state agency), we used Jupyter heavily while developing the core code for the data processing pipelines. We were reading and processing data from instruments based on (bad) docs and notes from a former employee who reverse-engineered the format, so there was a lot of edge-case finding and testing. The notebooks fleshed out with comments and notes in Markdown upon completion and were saved within our repo as interactive documentation, demonstrating the more complicated processing steps in a far more approachable fashion.

zwaps 6y ago

The variable explorer is much better than the one PyCharm has, for example. Of course, Pycharm has many other tools and a much better interface (Spyders scaling is grgrgrgrgr). But for scientific data work? Spyder is great!

pyromine 6y ago
Oh boy, I can't even get spyder to move between two of my monitors because it always complains about scaling and then I can't get the popup to consistently not show up
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Would you prefer to hide it forever? We could add an option for that, but scaling could fail in some circumstances.
  - pyromine 6y ago
    I would 100% rather hide it forever

greatgoat420 6y ago

I like spyder a lot for the variable explorer, which makes it feel more like Matlab. However the constant bothering about installing Kite got annoying. Unfortunately there isn't a way to use Kite and have it not constantly annoy you about upgrading to the enterprise edition. If Kite had a no ads plan for like ~ $10 a year it would make a lot more sense to integrate it in spyder.

generalizations 6y ago
Not to be trite, but there is a github repo and the license is MIT. I'd guess it's possible to find the relevant nag code (possibly in its own github commit), strip it out, and recompile. Edit. maybe this is what you're talking about? https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/commit/6b602af50f632cf669c922591bf140b4d4051875 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/commit/6b602af50f632cf6...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fock 6y ago
  but why is that even there? I guess that's just another reason to stay with emacs...
  - detaro 6y ago
    Sponsoring/buying things in exchange for kite promotion seems to be their MO - there was quite a bit of noise about the more brazen instances of it a while back when the used existing editor extensions to push their product or telemetry code (see e.g. https://theoutline.com/post/1953/how-a-vc-funded-company-is-undermining-the-open-source-community https://theoutline.com/post/1953/how-a-vc-funded-company-is-... and HN discussions about "kite")
  - ccordoba12 6y ago
    Well, this is the thing: code completion in Python is not a a simple task and we've struggled for years to improve it. Now we support the Language Server Protocol (designed by Microsoft for VSCode), but still things are not great, i.e. there are many things that can't be completed by Jedi, specially for scientific libraries. So, thanks to Kite's software, we implemented a client for it and now lightly promote it to our users, to offer them a possibility that works better, but it's completely optional. We also consulted our community before adding Kite integration and they were favorable to it, that's why we decided to proceed with the idea: https://twitter.com/Spyder_IDE/status/1138466325532217346 https://twitter.com/Spyder_IDE/status/1138466325532217346

superbcarrot 6y ago

Can I get the following behavior from Spyder (last time I tried I couldn't find a way) - for some keyboard shortcut like Cmd/Ctrl + Enter: - the shortcut sends the selected code to the terminal (this is possible) - if I hit the shortcut when nothing is selected, the line where the cursor currently is gets sent to the terminal and the cursor moves to the next line of code - if the cursor is at the beginning of a block of code like an if-statement or a loop, the whole statement is sent to the terminal and the cursor moves to after the statement RStudio has this behaviour by default, I find it very convenient and I haven't been able to replicate it in other environments.

dplavery92 6y ago
That sort of workflow sounds a lot like what you would get from a notebook like Jupyter, albeit you would have explicit block of code ("cells") to be executed together. It looks like Spyder now features Jupyter Notebook integration as well: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder-notebook https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder-notebook
navbaker 6y ago
You can define code cells in Spyder and execute them with a shortcut. I’m on an older version, but for me it’s “# In[]” to start a code block, then shift-enter to execute. -Edit: to clarify, that string starts a code block, which continues until end of file or you designate another block. Executing the current line or the selected lines is just F9.
omarhaneef 6y ago
As a sibling points out, I use F9. I prefer the control enter because I am used to enter to execute, but it is fine.
kleiba 6y ago
RStudio has this behaviour by default, I find it very convenient and I haven't been able to replicate it in other environments. Certainly you can replicate that in Emacs?!
- deleted 6y ago

gspr 6y ago

I'm sorry, I'm sure Spyder has lots of merits (and I'm sure the devs are wonderful people), but I've spent so much time fixing fellow academics' Python problems that were in the end rooted in "I don't know what I'm doing, so I installed this Spyder thing and it has now taken over every aspect of Python on my computer" that I feel a visceral negative reaction to the name in my body. Not Spyder's fault, of course, but nonetheless.

ccordoba12 6y ago
(Spyder maintainer here) I don't understand your comment. Spyder is like any other regular Python package, so it can't take over your computer. We have some customizations to run code, but that's to provide a better experience to users.
lytefm 6y ago
Things can get very messy when installing Spyder via pip and then trying to upgrade stuff. Distutils tends to screw these updates up. I've nuked my local Python packages recently due to that mess and made a clean reinstall, but I guess that's not what you'd like to do if you have many Python packages other than Spyder installed.
- ccordoba12 6y ago
  Agreed, installing Spyder with pip can lead to a lot of headaches. That's why we don't recommend to use it and suggest Anaconda/conda instead. But that solution also became problematic during the last couple of years (conda is too slow or throws back a huge dependency errors). That's why we decided to create our own, self-contained installers for Windows and macOS: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 Since they are completely isolated and don't come with pip, they can't be broken. And you can connect them to other Python environments by following these instructions: http://docs.spyder-ide.org/current/faq.html#using-existing-environment http://docs.spyder-ide.org/current/faq.html#using-existing-e...

ct0 6y ago

I tried to use spyder on some projects, but the constant crashing without restoration of my work got old very quickly.

ccordoba12 6y ago
This was fixed in Spyder 4 by providing autosave functionality to our editor. You should give it a try again.
lytefm 6y ago
I've been using Spyder for my whole DS master and rarely experiences crashes on Ubuntu, unless I've managed to go OOM. That being said, I've been using Spyder 4 via pip since the 4.0.0 release while Spyder 3 was still the default on conda. Autosave is definitely useful.

munk-a 6y ago

Please use carefully if you have aracnopyhopia. The naming seems pretty poor for me given that I'd assume that spyder would be a webcrawler written in python.

bluesmoon 6y ago

It often causes a double-take for me when I see projects on HN with the same name as projects I once worked on. Way back in time, maybe around 1998, a friend an I worked on a steganography tool that we called Spyder. I don't remember where it was published or under what license (probably freeware), but the algorithm was incorporated into Hide4PGP (http://www.heinz-repp.onlinehome.de/Hide4PGP.htm http://www.heinz-repp.onlinehome.de/Hide4PGP.htm), and we stopped work on it. This post just caused a bit of nostalgia. I can still remember my co-developer taking a break jamming on a bass guitar while we tried to figure out the striping problem (the solution was to compress the data to increase entropy first).

myhf 6y ago
There's also a recent video game named Spyder https://www.spyderthegame.com/ https://www.spyderthegame.com/

dunefox 6y ago

Every link at the bottom is invalid (404)...

ccordoba12 6y ago
Fixed now, sorry for the inconvenience.

nether 6y ago

Jupiter Notebook is Mathematica, Spyder is MATLAB.

lend000 6y ago

Spyder is great. More minimalist than Pycharm, but it actually allows you to run multiple Python consoles in parallel, which is strangely absent from Pycharm.

ehsankia 6y ago
I generally find it really hard to use full on IDEs like PyCharm for doing more investigative/research kinda work in Python, which is where Jupyter/Colab/Spyder are great at. It's just a very different flow, creating a large application versus doing analysis/research.
- jonnycomputer 6y ago
  Pycharm Professional edition has a Scientific project type, which I was hoping someone has experience with.
- alexchantavy 6y ago
  I like to do a bit of a mix: write the library functions in Pycharm, then import and call them in Jupyter Lab. I used to try to do implementation too in Jupyter Lab but that got messy very quickly.
- _coveredInBees 6y ago
  Personally, I can't stand Jupyter for research because the introspection capabilities are so poor and limited compared to working in something like Spyder, Pycharm or VsCode. Moreover, I much prefer having interactive matplotlib plots for data exploration in a Qt/Gtk window rather than the inline matplotlib plots in Jupyter (though you can sometimes get it work to pop up windows for plots, but you still have a more interactive plotting experience in Pycharm/Spyder/VsCode) As someone who loves Spyder and used it a lot many years back, I've had no trouble doing all my scientific/algorithm prototyping in Pycharm while benefiting immensely from the astoundingly superior code intelligence/auto-complete/type-hinting in Pycharm. There is also a "Code Cell" plugin you can download for Pycharm that basically gets you to parity with Code-cells in Spyder/Matlab. For me, the excellent Python shell in Pycharm that supports multiline copy-paste, tab completion, and function-signature overlays makes prototyping algorithms and ideas much faster. That paired with the excellent history browser in Pycharm lets me easily grab relevant bits of code and promote them into a script or function and go from there. And then if you are trying to debug any algorithm, Pycharm is far superior on that front and I am far more efficient at debugging and fixing problems in Pycharm than in something like Vscode (though I do recall Spyder's debugger being pretty decent since it supports integration with IPython) There is a steep learning curve with Pycharm initially, but imo it works just fine (and for me at least, much better) in comparison to other things like Spyder/Jupyter. I would definitely recommend Spyder to most non-software engineer Python users, especially if they are in Data science. Nothing by <3 for Spyder's awesome data viewer widgets.

vsskanth 6y ago

I really like spyder for it's Matlab like IDE but I wish they handled virtual environments better. I also don't like that I have to install their kernel in the venv to use it.

ccordoba12 6y ago
Hey, thanks for the feedback! We plan to improve our support for virtual environments in the future. Also, it's really necessary to install spyder-kernels in every env to make the variable explorer and debugger work for it. However, that could be by us handling virtual envs and installing spyder-kernels on behalf of the users.
- vsskanth 6y ago
  That would work too. Thank you

jonnycomputer 6y ago

Has anybody used Pycharm's Scientific project type for data analysis?

cheptsov 6y ago
Hey, a PM of PyCharm here. Justin case someone will find it useful and relevant. Our team is currently working on a brand new IDE (based on PyCharm) for data scientists. A big part of what we're doing is convenient support for Jupyter notebooks within the IDE. This new IDE is currently under development but already provides the support for notebooks similar to how the native web Jupyter notebooks work – cells and outputs under each cell. The IDE's functionality will include SQL, Jupyter, Python, and R support. If you'd like to try the early EAP builds of this new IDE with the new notebooks support, please fill out this short form: https://pages.jetbrains.com/pycharm-data-science-insiders https://pages.jetbrains.com/pycharm-data-science-insiders Once you’ve confirmed your participation, you’ll get a detailed email with instructions on how to download the early builds and details about how to share your feedback. Will be also happy to answer questions if any.
- jonnycomputer 6y ago
  Interesting! Curious as to whether you'd say the approach you are taking is closer to Jupyter's binary cell approach or RStudio's Notebook's text-based approach. Thanks!
  - cheptsov 6y ago
    Our current approach to is very similar to the native Jupyter experience where notebook contains multiple separate cells. You can manipulate these cells with shortcuts or mouse. It looks very similar to Jupyter or JupyterLab. At the same time, if you open a Python script, you'll be able to use cell delimiters (aka `#%%`).
    - lytefm 6y ago
      Good to know, I'll always prefer working with cell delimiters like in Spyder over working with Jupyter Notebooks. I've also tried out PyCharm Professional, but the experience with cells and iPython was just worse for me than in Spyder - so I'm only using PyCharm for refactoring right now. I think the main problem was that errors/results from cmdstanpy would simply cause PyCharm to crash/hang instead of getting handled properly like in Spyder.

zupreme 6y ago

I use the Anaconda-packaged version of Spyder on a daily basis. Great product, although I can never seem to get the IDE updates to consistently work within that environment. Nevertheless it is my favorite IDE for Python.

ccordoba12 6y ago
You could consider using our new installers, if you're on Windows or macOS, to avoid that: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 Then you can connect them to your conda envs, as described here: http://docs.spyder-ide.org/current/faq.html#using-existing-environment http://docs.spyder-ide.org/current/faq.html#using-existing-e...
- zupreme 6y ago
  Thanks!
- analog31 6y ago
  Does the installer work with WinPython? Also, thanks for a great tool!
  - ccordoba12 6y ago
    Sure, it works with any Python installation/environment that has spyder-kernels installed.
    - analog31 6y ago
      Thanks. So far, pip install --upgrade spyder has worked with no hiccups on WinPython, but it's good to know there's an alternative.
lytefm 6y ago
I'm not much of an Anaconda fan, but installing Spyder as a user package (pip install -U spyder) has always worked out well for me. After an upgrade, all I've ever needed to do was to upgrade to the spyder-kernels in my venv. Spyder is such a great tool and much more useful than Jupyter Notebooks for explorative DS work, imho. Thank a lot for maintaining it, Carlos. I don't mind the kite installer - but I've tried it out and found the completions pretty useless.

civilized 6y ago

The last time I tried Spyder, I think around 2015-2016, it really struggled with large datasets. A lot of pausing and hanging that wouldn't happen at an IPython prompt. Is that better now?

ccordoba12 6y ago
Yes, we definitely improved on that front. Spyder should be more responsive now. You should give it a try with our new installers for Windows and macOS, which save you the trouble of installing Anaconda: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1

refactor_master 6y ago

Eh, Streamlit and PyCharm is a much more powerful combination IMO. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something about variable explorer always felt like training wheels to me.

greatgoat420 6y ago
Because it is super manly to guess at what the 20th element of an eigenvector is? Or you like super long printouts of data where it is hard to figure out what the index is? Matlab has one for a reason, and it is because very often you want a quick look at your often gigantic data.
- _coveredInBees 6y ago
  Lol, that got a chuckle out of me. Yeah, it boggles my mind that someone would be disdainful of something as useful as a good variable viewer in an IDE. While it is certainly pretty essential when you are working with data or prototyping algorithms, I also do a lot of software engineering and library development in Python and I still find it *extremely* useful in Pycharm when prototyping code, and especially when debugging. Like sure, I could drop into pdb and tediously work through printing things out (and good luck if you are printing out ndarrays or large dictionaries or wanting to look through instance variables for an instance in your local execution context) and take 4X longer to figure out why something isn't working, or just in a quick glance figure out exactly what the issue is. I guess I'll continue being a n00b developer happily relying on a variable explorer whenever available :o).
ccordoba12 6y ago
I respectfully disagree. The variable explorer allows to check what variables you have declared and how they change with changes in your code. This is critical for scientific computing because you're constantly interacting with data (i.e. reading, cleaning, plotting and analyzing it), so having a dedicated pane for it is a great advantage.
- ajford 6y ago

StreamBright 6y ago

Is this written in Python? What does it use for the display?

ccordoba12 6y ago
Yes, it's written in PyQt and we integrate with a lot of libraries in the Scientific Python ecosystem (Pandas, Sympy, IPython, Matplotlib, Scipy, Cython, etc).

tobmlt 6y ago

As someone who has used spyder everyday for years, it’s really getting in my way lately. Important caveat: I’ve just recently upgraded from some really old versions to the latest spyder. Now it throws off my work flow by continuously tripping code hints or suggestions or whatever. When I try and click into the interpreter I find now I’d better click two or three times instead of one — to subvert the type hint that is sure to push cursor focus back to the code. If I don’t do that I am suddenly typing into the code window that which was intended for the interpreter. It sucks and I need to find out how to fix it. Surely there is something I can do in settings to chill the hinting/or-whatever out.

lambda_obrien 6y ago
I've been having that issue with vscode; sometimes the tooltips get in the way and I have to click several times to get my cursor in the code. I think the tooltips should be click through.
ccordoba12 6y ago
Yes, you can disable hovers and hints completely. For that you need to go to the menu Tools > Preferences and then Completion and linting > Introspection and disable there "Show calltips" and "Enable hover hints".
- tobmlt 6y ago
  Thanks! I’ll try turning off “everything” and see how it goes. — I am hoping to find some middle ground where I can still make use of some features. I’ll play around with it some more. I’d gotten discouraged by stack overflow discussion of similar issues where turning off various features wouldn’t stick.
  - tobmlt 6y ago
    Replying to my own comment because there’s more to it. I’m paying more attention to the issue, and sometimes Spyder just context switches, quite often with very annoying timing, and often for no reason I can pinpoint. It just wants to be in one window right after I click in a different window. This does not make easy to diagnose or complain about, but it is driving me away rapidly.

dang 6y ago

If curious see also! 2018 (a bit) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16232940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16232940 2013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6622156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6622156 2014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7042369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7042369 2009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=889615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=889615

tr1ll10nb1ll 6y ago

I loved using this until before I tried using PyCharm and VSCode and switched to them instead due to irregular updates while using Spyder within Anaconda on my Mac. Also, the UI started feeling a bit in my way but that's just me I think.

ccordoba12 6y ago
Yeah, updates in Anaconda can be bumpy. That's why we decided to create our own installers for Windows and Mac: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1 https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/releases/tag/v4.2.1

Bedon292 6y ago

If you regularly use Spyder, what is it specifically that you like about it? I had pretty much thought it was just a tool for people who normally work in R and Matlab to ease into python. Which I totally understand, but is there more to it? It is purely for scientific programming, or do people use it for other things too? Like would you ever write a Django app with it? What am I missing out on by not using it? For my normal use, I am not seeing anything I can't do in VSCode. Is it worth checking out though?

alanbernstein 6y ago
I haven't used it, but I immediately decided to try it out, just in the hope that it will make managing matplotlib windows a little more convenient.
perpetualpatzer 6y ago
Outside of scientific computing, I typically go to Spyder on one-off scripts and smaller projects. I like Spyder over PyCharm for smaller projects because there's less startup cost and the code cells functionality is handy for the "edit and run this part until it does what I want" style of coding, which makes the bulk of my time in small projects. For bigger projects, PyCharm's refactoring, commit diffing, code regions, and formatting are enough better to be worth the fuss. As a rule of thumb, if I'm going to bother to set up a dedicated environment / git repo / file structure / test suite, I'll typically use PyCharm, else Spyder.
- lytefm 6y ago
  > and the code cells functionality is handy for the "edit and run this part until it does what I want" style of coding, which makes the bulk of my time in small projects. Yes, I love this „quick and dirty” interactive style within Spyder too, but switch to PyCharm when I need to refactor, work with larger project or test. Sometimes I'd switch multiple times per day for the same project, so having a more Spyder-like DS tool under development at JetBrains seems to be good news.
analog31 6y ago
I admit that I use it mainly because of all the nice code checking. I've been programming for 40 years, mostly "scientific," but have never made effective use of an IDE. So this is a new experience for me. With the guidance of a couple of colleagues, I'm bring myself up to date on writing quality code.

eigenvalue 6y ago

I'm a huge fan of Spyder. I have tried PyCharm and found myself much less productive. I think it's the integration of the variable explorer, and how you can easily look into tabular data or lists. I wish the updating process were more seamless, without requiring installers, similar to how VSCode or Chrome handle updates.

ccordoba12 6y ago
Thanks for the feedback. That's planned for this year, i.e. to have auto-updating and signed installers (at least on Mac). So stay tuned.

Mewtwo 6y ago

Saw this thread and instantly installed Spyder on my Windows PC. My display is 4k 15 inch with 250% scale. The fontsize of UI didn't scale and is too small. Well, like many other Windows apps that can't handle high DPI well, I'll check later when it's polished.

tryptophan 6y ago
I use spyder on my 4k 15 inch display. It works 100% fine. I think I may have set scaling in the options to "auto" or "hidpi".
- Mewtwo 6y ago
  Thank you! I only opened the software once and didn't check settings. Enabled high DPI and it worked. Wondering why they doesn't enable it by default.
  - ccordoba12 6y ago
    Because it'd make everything look huge in non-high DPI displays. It's a trade off, but most people still use them.

kernelsanderz 6y ago

I love the idea of Spyder. Particularly as a replacement/alternative to Jupyter notebook style workflows. The last time I tried to use Spyder to connect to a remote kernel, there was no way to interrupt a remote kernel. I understand that this was an inherent issue with the kernel APIs (Jupyter has it's own watchdog process that is responsible for sending signals to the kernels it monitors). Is this workflow better supported now? (ie. using Jupyer to connect to a remote kernel that has GPUs?, and having an easy way to interrupt / restart the remote kernel if it hangs?

ccordoba12 6y ago
Unfortunately we haven't had time to address that, but it's high in our TODO list. We hope to do it this year.

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dartharva 6y ago

I love Spyder's UI but it's way too slow to load on a computer with an HDD.

ccordoba12 6y ago
We're working to improve that