Together with Python e-learning courses this could be a real winner. I say this because back when I tutored compsci students, my most effective method was to use shared (GNU) screen sessions. The pair programming and the ability to see how others worked helped students become confident with Python a lot faster.
Unfortunately back then, students tended to use Windows and setting up Cygwin scared a lot of them before they even got around to doing any programming. A tool like Python Anywhere would definitely be a far more attractive approach if I were to do something similar today.
Yes it is definitely something that people are already using PythonAnywhere for. Especially introductory Python classes. Setting up everyone's machines can take hours. If they manage it at all.
Have you considered installing Enthought free edition ? It has in a single package: Python, Numpy, Scipy, IPython, and you can install it on Linux, Windows and Mac.
"Mac OS X 10.8 restricted to App Store, signed apps by default"
Says an App has to be released via the Appstore and signed to be installable under the default settings. This is not true. An app needs to be Signed OR in the Appstore to be installable by default.
Can you please edit your post title to include the word OR or a "/" between the two mechanisms?
Unfortunately I can't edit the title anymore (really sorry about that), HN let's you modify a post for a limited amount of time, after which the title (and the possibility to delete a post) is frozen.
As a side note, the title is the non edited title of the linked article, I didn't wrote this article ...
OK that link totally didn't do what I thought it would. Anyways, what I meant to say was: see Tycho's post below - sometimes you're at a PC which doesn't have Python installed.
So it doesn't have to be a replacement for your desktop, although it can be. It can also just be a complement - if you use dropbox or github, then you can know that, no matter where you are, you can always get to your code and work on it... internet cafe in Thailand, friend's PC, locked-down-corporate-desktop...
Edit: Apparently there are some bugs with the Dropbox snyc. When trying to open a .txt file (in the same shared Dropbox dir) I always get an IOError...
output=open("proj4-suc.txt","r")
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'proj4-suc.txt' (but it is shown in the file explorer too..)
That is pretty cool. It reminds me on Cloud9 IDE http://c9.io/. But I guess Python Anywhere is a better fit for Python developers. And you guys are beating Cloud9 with the price. I like that :-)
I am not a Python developer, but I will send the link to my Python friends.
Good luck with that.
I would love you guys to uninstall some common libraries like Django and let the users decide what kind of version that would fit. Except from that it is very cool! Would love to hear more about how this is implemented technically.
You can install modules locally, using pip install --user, and then I gather that the right combination of virtualenv hacks in your WSGI file will let you choose the django version... Will try and get that documented somewhere.
We're definitely keen to get it in asap. The hang-up was getting secure websockets working - that was showing up a bunch of socket errors server-side, but the latest dev testing seems to show things are looking better, so we hope to get it in real soon. weeks not months...
Unfortunately back then, students tended to use Windows and setting up Cygwin scared a lot of them before they even got around to doing any programming. A tool like Python Anywhere would definitely be a far more attractive approach if I were to do something similar today.