

Spyder – Scientific Python Development Environment - rbanffy
https://code.google.com/p/spyderlib/

======
elyase
Windows users can also consider Visual Studio + Python Tools [1]. Another
multiplatform alternative is Enthought's Canopy (Free Academic License) [2]. I
consider both to be superior alternatives to Spyder for scientific python
usage. And of course the iPython notebook [3] which is my favorite alternative
but you still can't easily inspect the variables, I hope it comes soon with
the javascript enhancements.

I appreciate the great effort behind Spyder but I think the UI and the
documentation, website etc lack a lot of polishing and attention. I have tried
it a couple times and I never get around simple things, like installing
packages and the environment.

[1] [http://pytools.codeplex.com](http://pytools.codeplex.com)

[2]
[https://www.enthought.com/products/canopy/](https://www.enthought.com/products/canopy/)

[3] [http://ipython.org/notebook.html](http://ipython.org/notebook.html)

~~~
ccordoba12
Please use Continuum's Anaconda (multiplatform), Python(x,y) or WinPython
(Windows only) if you want to have a full scientific distribution that also
comes with Spdyer. I you're on Mac, you can also download our dmg [1], which
has the most important scientific libs preinstalled. At the moment we don't
provide a way to install packages with Spyder but I'm thinking to build one on
top of conda (Anaconda's package manager).

I agree with your complaint about our docs, they are very minimal indeed. What
we have tried to do is to make our interface as easy to understand as possible
to compensate that fact. But I'll try to improve them.

If you find elements of our UI not polished enough, please post a message in
our mailing list with a detailed explanation, this is very important to us.
For example, I fixed most of the complaints on this blog post [2], which
helped us to improve a lot our UI.

[1]
[http://code.google.com/p/spyderlib/downloads/list](http://code.google.com/p/spyderlib/downloads/list)

[2] [http://xcorr.net/2013/04/17/evaluating-ides-for-
scientific-p...](http://xcorr.net/2013/04/17/evaluating-ides-for-scientific-
python/)

------
wirrbel
I use spyder with Scipy and it generally works quite well. Normally I am a vim
user and do not like IDEs, but Spyder make switching between data, sources and
repl really neat.

On the other hand, only with spyder I get that many annoying trailing spaces
for some reaseon.

~~~
ccordoba12
Yep, sorry about that. You can kill those trailing spaces though by setting

Automatically remove trailing spaces when saving files

in

Tools > Preferences > Editor > Advanced Settings > Source code

------
davidovitch
I can't really relate to all the other great IDE's out there for Python, but
in the scientific context I think Spyder makes a lot of sense. It tries to
create a comfortable environment for scientists with a limited background on
computer science. Especially for the more GUI oriented users, it is great to
have a visual on the variables in the workspace with the variable inspector
(like Matlab has). Debugging toolbar, object inspector showing rich text
documentation (including MathJax rendered formulas), running a multitude of
Python or IPython consoles, syntax checking etc makes it for my line of work
as a scientist a very decent environment.

There was a nice tutorial given on the SciPy 2013 conference [0] by Carlos
Cordoba (the main developer these days for Spyder I believe). What I also
think is exciting is that he shows some ideas about how to integrate the
IPython notebook in Spyder (last minutes of the talk). Would be interesting to
see when that feature further materialize. I think that is a potential killer
feature. There are more interesting idea's on further improving Spyder, please
ping the mailing list if you are interested in helping out :-)

Besides python(x,y), the WinPython distribution [1] can sometimes offer some
installation releave for Windows systems (don't have experience with it as a
Linux user though).

@Rickasaurus: When running Spyder straight from source, you can have multiple
instances running. Not sure in what context that would be useful besides
developing Spyder with Spyder [2] though: python bootstrap.py -- --new-
instance

@Derbasti: Spyder does work with Python 3 [3] for the older 2.1 branch. For
2.3 I believe full Python 3 support is also eminent.

[0] [http://pyvideo.org/video/2113/the-advantages-of-a-
scientific...](http://pyvideo.org/video/2113/the-advantages-of-a-scientific-
ide-scipy-2013-pr-1)

[1]
[https://code.google.com/p/winpython/](https://code.google.com/p/winpython/)

[2]
[http://code.google.com/p/spyderlib/wiki/NoteForContributors](http://code.google.com/p/spyderlib/wiki/NoteForContributors)

[3] [http://spyder-
ide.blogspot.dk/2013/01/spyder-v2114-supports-...](http://spyder-
ide.blogspot.dk/2013/01/spyder-v2114-supports-python-3.html)

Disclaimer: I am a tiny and modest Spyder contributor.

Edit: fix layout

------
Rickasaurus
Spyder is a really nice interface, but it has one huge problem (on windows at
least), you can only have one instance of it open at any given time. It's
hugely irritating for experimentation and so mostly I use IPython Notebook
these days.

~~~
ccordoba12
I you want to have multiple instances, just go to

Tools > Preferences > General > Interface

and deactivate the option called

Use a single instance

As simple as that. Almost all in Spyder is configurable :)

------
alexrson
Does anyone with experience with this IDE have an opinion about whether it is
superior to pycharm?

~~~
phreeza
The target audience is very different. Spyder is a kind of Matlab interface
replacement, and as such focuses a lot more on interactive aspects. Not sure
IDE is even the correct word for it.

~~~
computer
Indeed. Spyder is the RStudio[1] of Matplotlib + Scipy.

[1] [http://www.rstudio.com/ide/](http://www.rstudio.com/ide/)

------
tylerdurd3n
The problem with Python and its many IDE's is they still rely on textual code
visual-sweeping. For example, you see import random but there is no shortcut
to browse the random classes and methods. The same with all imported
libraries. I am suprised how easily developers approve the old command line
evaluator as comfortable. Try to rename several .py files while they are
opened in your IDE and see what happens. Unacceptable for this age.

And there is the thing of terminology. Object inspector is just accessing
method signature comments and parameter documentation. There is no real
dynamic object inspection or retrospection in Python. And its MOP is extremely
hard to use compared to other reflective languages. Sorry guys, but Python and
IDE's still repeats a lot the same ideas.

~~~
pwang
Have you tried PyCharm? It does all of these things.

------
jofer
Spyder is great for people coming to python from matlab. I reccommend it a lot
to complete beginners, as well.

For those not aware, it's basically an offshoot of python(x,y), which is a
really nice python distribution for windows.

Personally, I'm far, far too wedded to vim + ipython to use anything else, but
it is _really_ nice to be able to point people using windows to python(x,y). I
have nothing against commercial distributions like canopy or anaconda (which
offer many advantages), but there are a lot of cases where a freely-
redistributable option makes more sense.

~~~
pwang
Anaconda is completely free to use. It is produced by a commercial entity, but
it is completely free.

~~~
travisoliphant
And by free, he also means free to re-distribute (attribution license). It
comes with a very nice package manager (equivalent to brew, yum, apt-get, etc
--- but with integrated virtual environments). This package manager BSD-
licensed and free to use outside Anaconda as well.

------
thearn4
My students this summer used python/numpy/scipy with spyder in place of
MATLAB. I was pretty impressed with it overall.

------
Derbasti
An far as I know Spyder still doesn't support Python 3. Still a decent IDE for
scientific Python, though.

~~~
ccordoba12
2.3 (in beta right now) comes with Python 3 support.

------
smegel
All the scientists I work with (quite a few), swear by IPython Notebook.

~~~
ccordoba12
The notebook will be integrated in Spyder next year (I have a demo already
working). The advantage? Having a much pleasant desktop experience (like the
one provided by Mathematica).

------
emansim
It doesn't work on OS X Mavericks.

~~~
germancito
I'm using version 2.2.4 on Mavericks without a problem

~~~
emansim
I was using 2.2.5

~~~
germancito
I tried version 2.2.5 and it worked, but I had to change the permission in the
security preferences of OS X. Apparently Mavericks changed the permissions to
only allow approved apps to run.

~~~
emansim
I have changed that, but still I can't launch spyder, because of an error :(

~~~
emansim
It seems that qt-4 is not supported on Mavericks.

