
Guido van Rossum on PyCharm - rayvega
https://profiles.google.com/gvanrossum/posts/CGh9MoWU53V
======
masklinn
One part GvR didn't talk about which is top-notch in PyCharm is jumping around
in your source code. The searching of symbols and classes (via a search box)
is very well done and generally works quite well, which is extremely handy for
big codebases, and the contextual jumps (option-click on a class name) to
definitions is quite cool as well.

And in usual Jetbrains fashion, it comes with a bunch of refactoring though
they tend to show their Java origin (extract method can handle multiple return
values, but provides no way to set the order of the return tuple whereas you
can reorder parameters)

~~~
masklinn
Oh forgot one: _PyCharm has a very good support for virtualenvs_.

It's not quite perfect yet, but you can set a virtualenv interpreter as a
project's current interpreter (PyCharm does not automatically recognize that,
and that's the major feature lacking) and PyCharm will see the right
PYTHONPATH. Very, very handy with `virtualenv --no-site-package` which I tend
to use a lot.

------
gourneau
I won a PyCharm license at PyTexas last year. Before I wond the license I had
a bad experience with the beta version. It took almost 9 months using it on
and off until I it finally became my IDE of choice.

\- The Subversion integration is killer.

\- There is even a tool to apply .diffs.

\- There is a plugin that gives me VIm key bindings.

\- The Django integration is nice, including Django templates.

\- The CSS editor is fantastic. One cool feature is the color referenced in a
line is put in the left gutter.

\- The debugger is very handy.

\- The quick file navigation bar is a super handy way to jump between files.

\- The "Go To" for Class , File, and Symbol is a very quicksilver-ish way to
navigate your project

\- As trite as it might sound, the color themes are super easy to change.
Which are close to impossible to change with PyDev + Eclipse.

\- The syntax highlighting helps me catch errors

~~~
heyitsnick
Have you used WingIDE? How does it compare? After shelling out for a $150
license and using it enthusiastically for about 3 months, I found myself
moving back to basic text editors. I guess I just found the slowdown and
general clunkyness was not offset by the additional toolset. Wondering how
pycharm compares.

------
anateus
PyCharm's been the only thing that made me leave Vim for any length of time.

It's not about having it all in one place, it's the attention to detail and
the little conveniences that are everywhere. Whereas in general purpose
editors I'm mostly fine, but eventually stumble on small roadblocks at the
edges, with PyCharm every once in a while I stumble on wonderful gems (remote
debugging, auto-fixing common issues, etc.)

------
nek4life
In case anyone was interested in buying it JetBrains has a sale going on for 2
more days. (April 30)

<http://www.jetbrains.com/specials/index.jsp?home_banner>

I ended up buying IntelliJ because the python plugin is virtually the same
thing although it does lag behind the Pycharm version a wee bit in terms of
features. The other major difference is the way projects are started and the
feature to open files from the command line is missing in IntelliJ. If you
only use Python Pycharm is definitely a more focused product and doesn't have
features from other programming languages hanging out in your face in places
like the run configurations.

Also according to the license matrix on both IntelliJ and Pycharm the personal
versions are both for general commercial use. The difference between the
commercial and personal licenses mainly seems to be about who is purchasing
the software.

<http://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/buy/license-matrix.jsp>

------
erez
This is kinda the Anti-Gosling and his "Don't use emacs" spiel.
([http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/207799/don_t_use_ema...](http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/207799/don_t_use_emacs_says_java_father/))

EDIT: That article is really golden. It starts with the silliness about not
using emacs, without any clear reason why other than "not abiding to Moore's
Law" (whatever that means), he praises NetBeans (as if) but claims "almost
nobody bothers to modify its code because of its complexity", then, to top it
off, ComputerWorld refers to him in that (and other) articles as "Father of
Java", ignoring the quote at the bottom that says "People call me that because
it pisses me off."

------
cyrus_
Also worth a look is PyDev, the Eclipse Python plug-in.

<http://pydev.org/>

~~~
gitarr
Version 2 just came out and i love it.

Also worth a look in my opinion is Aptana Studio 3, which is basically Eclipse
with optimized settings and installed plugins for web-development, Python
(PyDev), rails, ...

One thing I installed on top was a mercurial plugin from the eclipse
marketplace, otherwise it's pretty complete for my needs.

~~~
jules
I am using Python+Aptana+Numpy+Scipy+Matplotlib for doing the programming of
some physics research, and it's great.

------
jmra
Bought a license of PyCharm and I'm having exactly the same experience as
Guido: love the debugger, prefer emacs+screen+ssh for everything else.

I've heard others python guys saying that they have PyCharm for exploring
complex repositories and debug things. The problem with emacs is that it's
perfect for coding, but not for exploring.

------
mgrouchy
I use Vim for essentially everything, what I would kill for is if I could
integrate a debugger similar to eclipse pydev, PyCharm or Komodo's.

PDB is great, but having to manually type and remember to remove breakpoints
can be a pain.

------
smortaz
PyCharm is awesome. [shameless plug]: if you're using VisualStudio, give
<http://pytools.codeplex.com> a try... free & open source from msft.

------
coderdude
I haven't heard about PyCharm until now. It looks like a great IDE. I think
I'm going to download the trial version and see if I want to throw down the
$50 for a single user license. Quite cheap and if it's as good as it looks it
will be well worth the money.

Check out their getting started video:
[http://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/demos/quick_overview/pychar...](http://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/demos/quick_overview/pycharm_getting_started.html)

------
mikle
I'm an avid Komodo IDE user after reviewing all options half a decade ago.
Anyone with experience in both IDEs can make a quick comparison?

------
n_are_q
I've read a number of discussions about python editors on stackoverflow and
some random blog posts, and netbeans seems to invariably be missing from the
discussion. Why is that? I've been using it for the past couple of months and
I definitely like it better than Eclipse+PyDev. Am I missing something obvious
that's missing relative to these alternatives?

~~~
wladimir
The thing with IDEs is that there are so mind-bogglingly many of them. It's
like with web frameworks. In every discussion/comparison at least a few are
bound to be missing.

------
tectonic
I'm a big fan of RubyMine, also made by the same folks... although it has
taken a few versions to really get good.

------
smogzer
I'm starting to use wingware wing IDE. And i got wing working with web2py with
code completion, etc.

Is pycharm for web2py development better than wing ? Since it is focused on
web applications it has potential to be better.

Thanks.

~~~
dkersten
I too would like to know this.

I recently switched from Django (I was also using Clojure, but switched back
to Python for web stuff because nobody around here knows Clojure...) to web2py
and love it. I've been using the integrated editor out of lazyness, but will
be ramping up my web development effort soon so could do with a good IDE. I've
tried and liked WingIDE in the past, but am open to alternatives too.

------
scorpion032
Wing works the best for me. It is the most "Pythonic IDE" I have come across.

------
nixarn
I'm also a huge fan of PyCharm. Has made all Python devving tons more fun
(Django + AppEngine is what I do). Can't recommend it enough, and I've tried
PyDev & Komodo wanting to like them.

~~~
mhb
Komodo IDE? What makes PyCharm better?

------
dimmuborgir
As a Linux user the biggest turn-off thing for me is the horrible font
rendering of Swing applications on Linux. This has kept me from using
JetBrains products and Netbeans altogether.

~~~
limmeau
Depending on a lot of version numbers, you may have to pass

    
    
              -Dswing.aatext=true
              -Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on
    

to your JVM. I don't know why the default is "ugly 1990s-style", but those
settings made Netbeans usable for me (for long enough to discover I still
prefer Eclipse, except for the profiler).

~~~
afsina
AFAIK There is a setting in editor->Appearance->Use Anti Aliased Fonts and, as
other commenter said Oracle JRE may have better font rendering than Open JDK.

------
mhb
How is it at running locally and working with files on a server? Does it find
imported files and functions on the server?

------
hartror
Code completion . . . I am so there!

