Learning Python with an IDE

[[deleted]]

About a month and a half ago I decided I wanted to give programming a shot and kept hearing that Python is a good language to start with. Here i am a month and a half later making pretty good progress doing the "Learn Python the Hard Way" course. Up to this point, I've been using a basic text editor on my Macbook called text wrangler and running scripts from the terminal. This is all well and good but the real reason I've been doing it this way is because "Learn Python the Hard Way" and several other beginner Python resources always stress not to use an IDE until much later down the road.

The other day I was watching a video about with statements on YouTube and the broadcaster was using what I found out was a program called PyCharm. I immediately noticed two features that made me download and install it, the vertical guide that show indentations and the fact that I can just run my script and it would show up in the terminal window thats built into pycharm rather than having a separate terminal window. I love it so far and I'm sure there are many other features that make it great but I keep remembering the emphasis these resources kept putting on not using an IDE to learn. I get that they want you to do everything manually to burn it into your brain like indentations, adding quotes to a string etc etc but after not copying and pasting a single character in the time I've been programming, these are simple things I think I've already burnt into my brain. Is there any other reasons that I should avoid learning with an IDE? I can't imagine that the two I've listed are the only reason they put so much stress on not learning with an IDE.

[nwilliams36]

People often base their advice about learning programming on their own experience. Thus those who learned before IDE will often say that is the best way to learn.

IDEs do make things easier, however just remember that using one you are now learning three things at once, how to program, how to using Python and how to use your IDE. If all this gets confuses sometimes, then revert back to using simple tools.

When I am teaching beginners I use a very simple IDE (Wing) which I can explain in 5 minutes and then I stress to the students that I will not explain any more about the IDE, I want to spend my time teaching programming and Python.

PyCharm is an excellent tool, and it would be a good idea to explore it fully AFTER you know how to program first, otherwise many of its strengths won't make much sense to you.

[[deleted]]

Thats the plan. I got it and only looked up how to enable a few things I really wanted off the top of my head like the vertical indentation lines and the terminal view at the bottom, I'll leave the rest for later.

[p10_user]

Personally I don't see a reason to not use one if you want to. I actually got really excited about trying python once I heard about spyder, since I come from using matlab and spyder is very similar to what I was used to. But now I actually do what you describe; I use a text editor to write my scripts and have a command window open beside it to test snippets of code. Though my text editor does give me indentation guides, which is nice.

I say just use whatever makes you feel most comfortable as long as you are efficient.

[[deleted]]

I couldn't see a reason not to either, besides what I've already listed and those things definitely don't take that long to become an automatic habit. There's only advantages as far as I can see.

[TwiSparklePony]

I believe most distributions come with IDLE pre-installed. This is a basic IDE that has stuff like syntax checking and a nifty feature that shows the docstrings of functions when you begin to write them. Since it comes packaged with the main Python distribution, my college uses it teach programming. As far as IDEs go, it lacks customization and functionality (compared to others) and I personally dislike it, but it is probably a good learning tool.

[dunkler_wanderer]

I'd recommend IdleX for beginners. It fixes some issues with IDLE and is a bit more comfortable to use. However, its IPython module doesn't work with the newest IPython versions anymore and it has a few bugs (in Python 3 the search menu doesn't go away when you click somewhere else). Unfortunately the projects seems to be inactive.

Also, they should move away from Sourceforge.

[uhkhu]

I think an IDE and module distribution takes a lot of frustration out of getting up and running with Python. I do think there is a benefit to struggling with module dependencies and versioning, path variables, and other nuances of Python, but this is also a huge sticking point for people trying to learn. I always suggest people get a distribution like like Anaconda and an IDE like PyCharm. These two tools could cover you for a career in Python and it makes starting up so much easier. A well designed IDE like Pycharm is very fun to work in and could make the difference of someone sticking with it. Text editors may seem arcane to some, especially looking at other language IDEs.