
PyCharm Edu: Python IDE to Learn Programming Quickly and Efficiently - Tomte
https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm-edu/
======
mathnode
From the FAQ:

Q: "How does PyCharm Edu differ from PyCharm Professional Edition or PyCharm
Community Edition?"

A: "PyCharm Edu is based on the Community Edition and comprises all of its
functionality. Additionally, it installs and detects Python during
installation. It has a simpler UI (adjustable in settings) and adds a new
"Educational" project type.

PyCharm Professional Edition additionally supports different web development
technologies, has remote development capabilities and additional languages,
and supports working with databases."

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NotQuantum
As someone who's written / taught a CS intro class in Python. This is a nice
addition to my tool belt. When I taught labs, we used a really crappy Python
IDE that consistently froze and would delete student's code.

I'm pretty partial to the VS Code and command line approach, myself. It
teaches you basic command line stuff, which is good for anyone learning CS in
the long run, and it teaches you how to NOT rely on an IDE for most of your
syntax and semantics which is enormously helpful for those starting out (even
though the learning curve is a bit steep).

~~~
emodendroket
Not using an IDE just strikes me as an exercise in pointless masochism.

~~~
bayonetz
Don't tell that to my Vim- and Sublime-loving coworkers...they'll look at you
like you're some idiot who must not be able to program very well.

~~~
dvcrn
Vim and Sublime have great support for code completion. I've never met someone
who writes code completely without any plugins

~~~
emodendroket
They do, but code completion is only the tip of the iceberg as far as IDE
features go.

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xapata
Unfortunately, PyCharm does not (by default) encourage the wonderfully
productive development pattern of ``python -i`` -- running the script and
breaking into the interactive prompt afterwards. IDLE does this and it's
excellent for teaching. Any other technique and the students are much less
likely to develop the habit of testing/debugging code interactively in the
REPL.

Even if you do invoke the interactive mode in PyCharm, each execution creates
a separate prompt, causing confusion. I'll admit I'm not the most skilled
PyCharm-user. Perhaps there's a way to make it work like IDLE?

~~~
petra
AFAIK, PyCharm doesn't have good auto-completion in the REPL, right ? Any
decent alternative ?

~~~
pauleveritt
If you install iPython into your project interpreter, it will be used.

~~~
Foivos
Or even better ipython / Jupyter notebook

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nxc18
I like this a lot. My uni just switched to Python from IDLE a few years ago.
While its nicer than IDLE, the complexity of the IDE can be a bit much for
novices. Heaven help you if you accidentally select the wrong python
interpreter at project startup, for instance.

The other thing I'd like to see is more intelligent defaults for project
location. On Windows, it defaults to the C drive, which is fine except for
when students don't know where their documents folder is buried. Putting a git
repo in a system folder breaks git because of permissions, but the UI will
never tell you that.

~~~
closeparen
I disagree. Misspelling symbols and forgetting function names and signatures
is a waste of time that distracts from what you're really learning.

I was dismayed to see the amount of time my first-time-programmer CS
classmates had to spend navigating directories to locate functions and dealing
with typo-based compile errors that would have been fixed immediately with an
IDE. We should not be teaching new programmers that this is normal. Language
and type aware autocomplete, inline syntax error and undefined symbol
highlighing, and go-to-definition are things you should always expect from
your programming environment.

Sure you can set up an editor to do these things, but that's a project in
itself, and the results tend not to be nearly as good as "just use the
JetBrains product."

~~~
xapata
IDLE has pretty decent auto-complete. I've found that teaching with IDLE
first, then switching to PyCharm (or other more full-featured environments)
after they've learned the basics produces better programmers.

Python also has the built-in ``help`` and ``dir`` for reminding yourself about
features. No need to rely on the IDE when the language has you covered.

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rebootthesystem
JetBrain products user, including PyCharm.

What JetBrains needs to do is create a good series of instructional videos to
show how they intend these products to be used. They are excellent and very
powerful but you are left to peek and poke around to figure out how they
intended you to use and configure them. The various videos available, last
time I looked, are seriously outdated. For example, there are a bunch of
different ways to work with PyCharm and Django.

The other thing they need to do is improve their customer service. The couple
of times I needed an answer not found on sites like SO it took something like
3 to 5 days to get an answer from them.

~~~
pauleveritt
FWIW, around a year ago I did the getting started videos:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ176FUIyIUZ1mwB-
uImQ...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ176FUIyIUZ1mwB-uImQE-
gmkwzjNLjP)

Can you let me know if this is the kind of thing that you're talking about?

~~~
rebootthesystem
Yes! Looks very nice. I can now point people to an easy set of videos to
understand how to use PyCharm to develop Python products. I will watch them
all when I have some time.

Do you cover Django integration at all?

Subjects such as remote development (You sit at your windows machine while
developing and running code on a Linux server elsewhere or on a local VM) and
deployment under various scenarios would be useful (for example, best way to
deal with deployment to separate application and database servers).

In general terms, a bunch of IDE's can provide a project tree on the left and
code completion. In the course of easy-to-follow tutorials it would be great
to highlight and teach how to use benefits PyCharm offers that add value to
the product.

Without this guidance people are left to poke around and sometimes fail to get
it.

A few years ago I had a situation where I wanted a client to switch from
SublimeText (an excellent product) to PyCharm. Probably a hundred seats or
more. A lot of resistance to IDE's in general. Three hour videos from PyCon
are deal-breakers, nobody but the most interested are going to watch them. And
JetBrains didn't have anything I could use. It looks like things might be
different now.

Thanks!

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0x8146
I love it. And I will religiously see through the entire course. Thanks
JetBrains guys

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binarray2000
For those of you working on Windows, may I suggest PyScripter:

[https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyscripter/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyscripter/)

(not affiliated but I want to support it by bringing it to your awareness)

It's a native IDE, it's fast, doesn't crash, there is a portable version as
well. I use it for the last four or five years when developing in Python.

~~~
JohnnyChase
Along the same lines, there is the awesome Python Tools for Visual Studio
plug-in that turns Visual Studio into full fledged Python IDE:
[https://microsoft.github.io/PTVS/](https://microsoft.github.io/PTVS/)

It supports CPython, IronPython, IPython, IntelliSense, mixed Python/C++
debugging, remote debugging, profiling, etc. And best of all? It's also open
source.

------
woof
PyCharm is awsome! And I say that as a 20 years+ (and counting) emacs user.

If you program python (especially Django), you should give PyCharm a go!

~~~
singularity2001
All of jetbrains products are awesome. Everyone I convinced about this thanked
me afterwards.

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hoistbypetard
> PyCharm Educational Edition is completely Free and Open Source. Novice
> programmers can download and use it for educational or any other purposes
> for free. Instructors and course authors can use it to create, modify and
> share their own courses.

I dug around the site a bit and found the quote above, but didn't find a link
to the source. Anyone find one?

~~~
AlphaSite
I don't know where exactly the pycharm source is, but I suspect its part of
the larger IntelliJ community repository.

[https://github.com/JetBrains](https://github.com/JetBrains)

~~~
sgift
It's the python subfolder of IntelliJ community edition:

[https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-
community/tree/master/...](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-
community/tree/master/python)

~~~
hoistbypetard
Nice. Thanks.

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stuaxo
I use pycharm at work every day. Tried showing a teacher friend some stuff,
but got confused as half the options seemed to be missing in the Edu version.

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theshire
Is there something similar for Javascript?

~~~
tyteen4a03
There is WebStorm and PHPStorm which is WS with PHP functionality - both
professional editions are free if you have an edu email.

~~~
theshire
I'm referring to the whole Education think not the Editor. thanks. Something
like Webstorm EDU

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partycoder
Wing IDE, another Python IDE, has had a similar product for a while (Wing IDE
101). It was very simple though.

