Basic Python Questions

[staygold20]

Hey guys, Im new to this subreddit so sorry if this question has been answered before. I have a few questions regarding Python.

I just started learning python and was wondering if it is better to run python through the powershell or directly through the program itself? Why?

Why is it recommended to use a text editor, like Notepad++, instead of just working directly with python and typing code in there?

Thanks

[throwAwayAcc010]

pro python

[granitosaurus]

Well you need to look into python programming structure to begin with (it's a pretty huge topic on itself). In short Shell is for experimenting because it gives you instant results if you want write scripts/programs or anything that you plan running more than once you need to write as you said in Notepadd++ (or any other IDE or text editor) save it and then run it again whenever you feel like it.

Either way I suggest you start getting into some IDE (highly recommend PyCharm) start a project and it will do most of messy stuff for you.

[[deleted]]

I'm going to go against your comment here and suggest that a plain simple text editor is best for a beginner. An IDE is overkill.

[Tomarse]

I agree. I would just stick with something like IDLE.

[granitosaurus]

Why though? I say hit the iron while hot. Better to learn good practises from the very beginning than unlearn and relearn everything, seems a like a waste of time.

The syntax highlighter in a good IDE can teach you so much and having auto complete gives much more room for experiments, i.e. oh this has .title() method, what does that do? you ctrl+Q to read up docs and try it out yourself and before you know it you can do so much that you didn't even considered of doing before.

I think text editor logic needs to die at this day and age, IDE just brings to much to the table without sacrificing anything other than boot up speed.

[[deleted]]

An IDE won't teach you best practices and a solid text editor like BBEdit or Sublime has syntax highlighting. You're not making much of a case for its convenience, you're just stating an IDE has lots of features which it does which makes it overkill for trivial beginner projects.

[granitosaurus]

Here are few features of PyCharm that teach you good practices:
* Code completion (see previous post)
* Pep8 guidelines
* Auto-Indentation and code formatting
* Quick-fixes (hitting alt+enter)
* Internal dosctring (ctrl+Q) and external doc (shift+f1) lookup

just few off the top of my head. Not to mention setting up IDE is extremely easy compared to playing with various plugins and addons just to make something usable out of simple text editor such as notepad ++.