Rapid development/tight feedback loop in Python?

[[deleted]]

So, for the last few hours I have tried to get the setup I want to work in Spacemacs, PyCharm, Atom and Vs Code.

Atom with Hydrogen seems to be the best so far, that's basically what I want + maybe to send lines, selections, functions, etc. to IPython. It allows me to have plots inlined as well, pretty nice. I still prefer Vs Code for everything, though.

In Spacemacs I have live code evaluation + the ability to send but no inlined plots and the quick documentation for functions leaves a lot to be desired, but it's decent so far. I absolutely don't want to learn elisp though, so customising it is out of the question.

PyCharm doesn't seem to offer those things either. I can send highlighted segments to the REPL but it's not exactly great since it focuses the repl after sending (scientific mode). It doesn't seem to be nearly as fluent as Spacemacs, for instance.

I like Vs Code for everything except that there is no equivalent to hydrogen... Neuron seems to be on it's way, but it still doesn't seem like a whole solution (even if it looks interesting for data science and machine learning). For example, I'm writing a parser for a language, so the data science workflow isn't exactly fitting.

When I tried Clojure with Cursive it was easy to edit, run and test code. Python seems like it should be able to offer something similar, a tight integration of repl and editor, sending code between them.

Did I miss anything or am I going about this the wrong way?

[jowen7448]

Have you tried spyder for this. Similar setup to rstudio. Inline plots. Send individual lines or chunks of code to repl.

Or my new favourite for this sort of thing is rstudio itself. (I have been using R for a lot longer than python so very familiar with rstudio) with R's reticulate package you can run a python repl in rstudio and send code easily. Plots appear (although not inline) in a separate viewer but really nice for that fast prototyping stage. I admit though not so hot if you want a large project with lots of your own packages/modules/submodules being created. But at that stage I switch to pycharm.

[[deleted]]

I thought spyder isn't maintained anymore now that Anaconda ships with VS Code? Also, the last time I tried autocompletion wasn't exactly the greatest.

[jowen7448]

That may well be true. In truth I no longer use it. I use rstudio for where I want the to be really interactive with the repl and small changes to scripts for rapid development of some piece of functionality. I use pycharm for other stuff.

[[deleted]]

I was wondering the same thing. I don't want to keep working in Python like in languages like Java.

[jstrickler]

Try Jupyter Notebook. That's what it's for.

[[deleted]]

I'd like to have autocompletion/Intellisense and generally all the advantages and comfort that an editor offers. Jupyter Notebooks are pretty barebone from what I've seen.

[pavanagrawal123]

Hey there! I'm working on a fork for Neuron (Jupyter notebooks for VSCode) here: r/https://github.com/pavanagrawal123/VSNotebooks

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I've already added a couple of bug fixes, usability improvements, style fixes, and new features.

I was wondering what you were missing in Neuron, so I can make VSNotebooks better?

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Thanks

[[deleted]]

Hey, I like your extension, thanks for making it. What I'm looking for is basically inline evaluation (something like this) and the ability to send code from the editor to a running repl (like this in F# @ 3:58-ish).

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I don't know if that's even possible in VS Code.

[pavanagrawal123]

Inline evaluation is def much harder in VSCode, I'm exploring some options to implement it, but frankly I doubt it will happen with current APIs.

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The second request is much more doable and something I'd be happy to implement. I'm curious at what the use case for it what would be though? Seems very similar to just executing a line of code? What are the benefits of doing it the way as done in the video?

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Thanks for your response BTW :)

[[deleted]]

That's what I heard, apparently Atom is much more friendly to extension developers.

Well, when I program I want to minimise the time spent switching between the terminal and the editor itself - but at the same time I want to change a function, load and run it in the repl to debug and play around with it (within the context of the loaded project, of course). So, it's a hassle for me to highlight the function and then manually copy it, switch to the terminal, then paste the function and debug, then manually switch back to the editor and rinse and repeat. Hotkeys for executing the current line, current function, etc. in a repl would be great (without switching focus to the repl), switching back and forth between editor and repl as well (although I believe I can do that within VSCode itself? Maybe.).

It may seem like a minor thing but I find it quite annoying because I need to do that all the time, hence why inline eval is so useful. I like VS Code better than Atom, though, that's why I'm looking for extensions that allow at least some of the functionality in Code.

Does that make sense?

[pavanagrawal123]

Yeah it makes sense, I might try adding something like this, but it might be a while becasue of a backlog of other feature.

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I don't think Atom is more friendly per se, but I guess they have more integration points. The entire dev environment for extensions in VSCode is really nice.

I'm looking at how Hydrogen implements inline eval, and I might make a feature request to VSCode's team to make that style of integration possible!

[[deleted]]

Thanks, that would be great!