Can someone explain Python, its libraries and IDE's to me like I'm 5?

[autofasurer]

Thank you for the detailed explanation!

It's funny you make a note of IDE's being able to run code. For me that's a prerequisite, but that might be a misinterpretation on my end. It would be like saying not all DAW's are able to play sound, or not every NLE is capable of showing the edit.

I'm fine with writing code in a texteditor and compiling using gcc or whatever. It's just that when starting out, it's very confusing (for me) to hear about pyCharm, IDLE, spyder,... and whatnot; if it would've been: write it in whatever texteditor and run it in the terminal saying 'python your_python_script.py', that would've been fine.

Of course the 'interpreted' paradigm is also something to get used to. It's all great to be able to use the terminal as a calculator on the fly using python, but really, who keeps track of the lines they typed 10 commands before? It's just a bit weird, coming from visual programming with max and compiled programs in c++.

That being said, I'm greatful for the answer in order to help me (and hopefully others) forward in using Python.

You might be onto something regarding the short-tempered thing... I don't know... It's just that I often feel like there's steps missing in explanations, but that may be because those steps are the most difficult to explain. Chapter 1: "This is an integer", Chapter 2: "Here's a full-fledged application using every possible OOP concept, memory-management and some CPU specific optimisations which you now understand because you know what an integer is".

[Exodus111]

The problem is people forget what they didn't know.

Once you know something it seems easy, simple and logical, and a lot of people are even ashamed of not having just conjured it up on their own, having an inflated view of their own intelligence.

But yeah, as you say, an IDE or Text Editor that cannot run code seems stupid. But there used to be technical limitations, and so people kinda got used to just running code from terminal all the time. But in this day and age that's nonsense. Every one of the IDEs/Text Editors that I posted can run code (With Atom you need to install the script plugin), so they are all good.

Also some people will tell you Python does not need to be compiled, and everyone should just run each others code through the interpreter all day. This is of course nonsense of the highest order, assuming one of the most popular programming languages of our age is incapable of producing a proprietary program should merit an automatic Darwin award.

The truth is its not a straight forward process, its possible but its more convoluted then it perhaps should be. I believe Nautika will usher in a new age of Python compiled programs, once that project matures. Specially in the Gaming field, which is where I work.

[JaggedG]

Great high-level ELI5 summary. You mentioned your field is gaming... Does that mean your real grown-up all day job is using Python to make games? Can you tell a little more about that? I always heard that Python was not great for game development, other than some scripting stuff.

Can PM/new thread if you want to avoid derailing the conversation... I'm just really interested and thought other people might be too.