I don't think the author's tool is in opposition to IDE/plugin based static analysis. For one thing, tools like python-mode for vim (https://github.com/klen/pyt

I don't think the author's tool is in opposition to IDE/plugin based static analysis. For one thing, tools like python-mode for vim (https://github.com/klen/python-mode https://github.com/klen/python-mode) call out to libraries like pylint to implement their functionality. Prospector also supports machine readable outputs that IDEs/plugins can use to determine how to display linting issues. Even if you prefer not to use a command-line based linter, a non-GUI option is essential if you want to do linting with CI. If you run an open source Python project, you can't assume that everyone will use a linter to check for warnings before submitting a PR (and even then, can't assume their linter settings match yours)—but you can check easily lint all PRs using Travis CI or the author's company Landscape.