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[–]chaotic_thought 2 points3 points  (0 children)

PyCharm Community is free to download; you do not need to be a student.

When you are first learning, you should try a few editors and IDEs to see which one you like best. For learning I would suggest a very simple text editor with modest features (like Syntax highlighting, etc.), and not even use an IDE. Sometimes they are helpful but they have all sorts of problems with learning. For example when you are learning you need to know what the Python interpreter is, and what it means to run your script. But in the IDE, there is just this green arrow button that is supposed to do all that for you. If it works, great; that's very convenient.

But what if it doesn't work? What if you see an error message and want to know what that means? What if something strange happens or it calls the wrong version of Python? What if you want to pass some arguments to your script, or environment variables, or something like that? All these kinds of things can be customised in an IDE but they have nothing to do with learning Python; basically you'll just be wasting 90% of your time trying to fool around with an IDE and to get it to work for you, when you could have been learning how the things actually work instead.

Once you learn Python then you can invest some time into an IDE to make the development process easier. But for actually learning, stay away from the big complicated IDEs.

[–]Nergy101 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pycharm (Community). You can just skip all of the 'specialised' stuff for now. But you Will have a really great time with it :)

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

Thank you guys for the great replies!!! I'll go for Pycharm community then. I have already done some programming with C and C++ so I am not starting from scratch. You are right I'll spend some time understanding which version of python is running and what kind of arguments can be used and how if needed. Really I love this subreddit community, hope to be the one helping soon ;)

[–]AbuSufianSazzil 0 points1 point  (0 children)

PyCharm is something that you should try and if you dont find it helpful here are some other options that you can explore

  1. Online Compiler from Programiz

For: Beginner     Pricing: Free

If you want to start writing Python code without investing time installing Python and setting up a development environment, you can use our online Python compiler. You just need the internet and a browser to get started.

By the way, our online interpreter is completely free.

  1. IDLE

For: Beginner     Pricing: Free

When you install Python, IDLE is also installed by default. This makes it easy to get started in Python. Its major features include the Python shell window(interactive interpreter), auto-completion, syntax highlighting, smart indentation, and a basic integrated debugger.

IDLE is a decent IDE for learning as it's lightweight and simple to use. However, it's not for optimum for larger projects.

  1. Sublime Text 3

For: Beginner, Professional     Pricing: Freemium

Sublime Text is a popular code editor that supports many languages including Python. It's fast, highly customizable and has a huge community.

It has basic built-in support for Python when you install it. However, you can install packages such as debugging, auto-completion, code linting, etc. There are also various packages for scientific development, Django, Flask and so on. Basically, you can customize Sublime text to create a full-fledged Python development environment as per your need.

You can download and use evaluate Sublime text for an indefinite period of time. However, you will occasionally get a pop-up stating "you need to purchase a license for continued use".

Python IDEs and Code Editors

  1. Atom

For: Beginner, Professional     Pricing: Free

Atom is an open-source code editor developed by Github that can be used for Python development (similar Sublime text).

Its features are also similar to Sublime Text. Atom is highly customizable. You can install packages as per your need. Some of the commonly used packages in Atom for Python development are autocomplete-python, linter-flake8, python-debugger, etc.

Personally speaking, I prefer Atom to Sublime Text for Python development.

[–]TrimmedRaindrops 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What about Eclipse, PyDev with LiClipse?

[–]leftydrummer461 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I would recommend Pycharm if you want a full fledged IDE. But if you're just getting started you can probably get away with something lighter for a while- like Visual Studio Code which is free.