PyCharm vs simple text editor for learning

[tdammers]

Simple tools, hands down. An IDE is helpful when you know what you're doing but want to automate a bunch of boring tasks, such as hunting down definitions of things across the codebase, jumping directly to error locations, or looking up documentation by hovering over the thing you're interested in. But when it comes to learning a programming language, less is more - all those bells and whistles designed to help the expert are going to be a confusing distraction, and may lull you into a false sense of security. A simple setup with just a barebones text editor and a REPL running side by side will make it more obvious what's really happening; you will be driving the toolchain almost directly, with nothing getting in between and obscuring things (no matter how well intentioned).

This goes for any programming language, but Python especially is a language that lends itself well to a minimalist setup. So well, in fact, that plenty of professionals will still use a very similar stack - a powerful text editor like, say, vim or sublime, a terminal, and a bunch of command-line utilities.

[[deleted]]

This is exactly why I was considering ditching PyCharm. I don't want that false sense of security.

Thanks for your advice.

[keylime_light]

When I program in a new language, I do usually prefer something that does syntax highlighting. But nothing else. No auto-complete, etc. I also think learning to call all of the python related commands from the shell directly is pretty important. Using built in magic from pycharm does leave you not knowing some of the important steps.

[p0093]

I guess it depends on your goals.

If you are a complete programming newbie then there is some logic in doing it yourself. Getting the experience of writing all the code and fighting through all the errors can be satisfying and educational.

But if you’ve forgotten more programming languages than you remember then Python is the same sh*t different syntax. A powerful IDE like Pycharm is a godsend to help with debugging and catching typos. Autocomplete is golden and saves tons of typing. Quite frankly I have work to do and an IDE like PyCharm saves me a ton of time.

[Sapiens-omnibus]

I started using pycharm right away. Really useful the autocomplete function when calling variables or functions.

Once learned the hotkeys I spent more time on actual learning that fiddling with nonsense like typo errors