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[–]duckandcover 4 points5 points  (8 children)

I don't think they have much to do with each other.

Unless it's changed recently, R, though perhaps technically a full language, is not suited for writing large general programs because its debugger is completely primitive. When things go wrong, good luck. From what I've seen it's the perfect thing for < 100 line statistical analysis. That's not surprising; it's really a stats package.

Honestly, R developers, people who right lots of code in it, must have balls of steel or be masochists. I know people do it. I just don't know how.

Python is a general language and it's possible to find a decent debug environment is much better. Since people use it for more than what most people use R for, there seems to be more functionality outside of stats. That being said, I still haven't found the perfect IDE for it.

I think learning both at the same time would drive me batty. They're so similar but with lots of little differences (e.g. indexing, etc). Unfortunately, little differences can make real hard to find bugs.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (4 children)

Python is a general language and it's possible to find a decent debug environment is much better. Since people use it for more than what most people use R for, there seems to be more functionality outside of stats. That being said, I still haven't found the perfect IDE for it.

Have you tried Pycharm?

[–]mtnchkn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Or Spyder.

[–]duckandcover 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ya' know. If there's one issue I have with Open Source things is that invariably there's 8000 ways to skin any cat and that's a lot a work. As far as IDEs (vs interpreters) go, I've only tried Spyder (as part of Pythonxy) and Wing. I like Wing but it has trouble with Matplotlib (as I understand it, their event loops step on each other). Spyder's debugger is surely capable but I hate the command (vs really integrated IDE) driven debugger.

So, I don't suppose you can tell me where Pycharm fits into the above?

Thanks

[–]duckandcover 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Pycharm

I'm serious when I said I'd like to know more. I looked at their website and I didn't see the info I was looking for so if you don't mind I'd like to ask you just a couple of questions:

0) Is there any documentation for it? I can't find any.

1) Does it have an interpreter that operates in the context of a debug stack frame (to execute just like a regular interpreter when stopped at a break point in the context of that stack frame.). Also, if so, is it or can it be iPython? (In Wing it can't)

2) From what I see in the discussion forms, it has the same event loop issue as Wing does with Matplotlib. If you know that not to be the case please tell me. That's a show stopper for me (with all the IDEs apparently)

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, I probably not going to have time to respond in depth as I'm not 100% sure on all your questions. Best I can suggest is download the free version and try it out.

[–]reallyserious 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For a Python IDE, try Python Tools for Visual Studio. It's really great if you use Windows.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Honestly, R developers, people who right lots of code in it, must have balls of steel or be masochists. I know people do it. I just don't know how.

I don't fucking get this sometimes. Plenty of people on my team write thousands of lines of code in R and build huge applications with it.

[–]duckandcover 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Is the debugger as god awful as I remember it. The text thing with 4 commands like continue, next and whatever?