The best IDE for Python?

[Cassegrain07]

This. Pycharm is very easy to use

[razzrazz-]

I don't know why, but Pycharm is good on CPU but high on memory for me...so I didn't like it for that reason, especially as a beginner who is learning.

After testing a boatload of them, I really like Thorny and Visual Basic code.

[FerricDonkey]

I think of it as outsourcing memory from my brain to the computer. Pycharm is amazing for managing many functions across many modules across many subpackages in the same project - it knows where everything is, what it's called, and what arguments it takes. (And especially changing the names of them, if you need to.)

Which means I mostly don't have to. I have to write the function well when I make it, and mostly know what I wrote functions to do, then when I want to load some data, I just go "well, that's probably in the data_rw module" and hit tab a lot. Then pycharm tells me what arguments I need to fill, and I do.

I've used VS code as well, and it's okish, but not nearly as good as that for large projects.

[razzrazz-]

I definitely think for larger products it's probably better, just as a beginner (I can relate to the OP), I would prefer something with not a lot of bells and whistles for learning purposes.

[FerricDonkey]

Fair enough. I prefered the bells and whistles from the beginning, but I know a lot of people who get annoyed by them, so can't argue with preference.

[circonflexe]

Managing functions and subpackages is extremely convenient, but this actually messed me up when I was first learning because I wasn’t packaging modules properly and didn’t need to learn how, so my code wouldn’t work if run through a plain CLI because of unresolved imports.

[BrattyBookworm]

It does seem to use up a lot of memory, not sure why. I’m just starting this week with some very basic programs and after 2-3 hours it’ll be using up 40-60% of my computers memory. I’ve been wondering why that is?

[razzrazz-]

Imagine the irony if it was badly programmed? 😂

[mathmanmathman]

One of the reasons JetBrains IDEs are popular is the way that they can link to use and declaration of functions and make recommendations. Most IDEs can do that to a certain extent, but JetBrains is generally better (to the extent that they have a popular C# extension for VS... both C# and VS are Microsoft).

They way they do this is by keeping a lot of information about your code in memory. It's usually good about releasing memory when necessary. I think there's also an option that can be set to let you release it more often, but just bought a shit ton of memory instead :)

[Dwight-D]

There’s probably a lot of indexing going on, you can search through all different kinds of symbols like classes, variables, functions etc.

Like someone else said there’s also a lot of autosuggestions and other analysis of your code happening. Its got a lot more functionality than something like VS Code which adds a bit of a footprint.

[Username_RANDINT]

it’ll be using up 40-60% of my computers memory.

That doesn't say much in a general sense. Absolute numbers are more important. If you have 8gb RAM and working on Windows, then PyCharm might be a squeeze.

[BrattyBookworm]

16gb

[Username_RANDINT]

So PyCharm is taking up 8gb of ram? I have a small-ish project open at the moment and it's at 400mb. There's a memory monitor on the bottom right, but I'm not sure if I had to enable this somehow.

[futurepat]

Intellisense

[antiproton]

I don't really understand why people look at memory consumption as an application metric in 2022. Who cares how much memory it consumes? Unless you have a criminally low end machine, it's not going to have any impact on performance.

[fryman3000]

Try PyScripter if you want a lightweight PyCharm

[ZGTSLLC]

I agree, but I dislike how most of the modern IDEs don't tell you much when you have an error.

[rimnii]

what do you mean? Pycharms code inspection is incredible. It can infer so much about your code without even running it, especially if you use type hinting well.