PyDev

PyDev is the other one. By itself it does nothing, it is a plugin that you need to add to an Eclipse Installation. I used it a lot several years ago, then I left it on the side because I needed to work with large files and (like most editors) it gets slow with large files (like >10000 lines), I used vim for that.

But now I’ve been using it and I like the way it evolved. The debugger is still there and I love it, to debug Python is the simplest way to step through your program. Like going inside of the function, check variables, multiple variables, at the same time, not just “p object”. It’s super easy to use the debugger there.

And, it also supports Django out of the box. So you can just create a Django Project, and then a Django app, and start working, the autocomplete is pretty good although sometimes modules with the same name in several packages can give a hard time, but just pay attention to the autocomplete.

PyDev uses pylint as the syntax check utility, you can switch to another variant but it has to be pylint compliant, I mean, use the same output, like using python with the pylint module and not directly the pylint executable.

Since PyDev runs on eclipse you get the benefit of using eclipse, a HUGE, but HUGE amount of plugins out there, support for GIT/SVN/Bazaar/Mercurial etc, with just some clicks, add the repo and install. You can also have other languages like Ruby, JavaScript, etc.. with just a few clicks, no “Professional” version is needed, but if you want to cooperate with the development of PyDev then you can use the version of Eclipse developed by the PyDev developer: LiClipse, which includes all you need to do Python developing (including HTML editors and all that stuff).

One of the thing that I like in the Django support is that making migrations and apply them in the development environment is quite easy, just a secondary click over the project folder, then go to the “Django” submenu and “manage.py makemigrations” or “manage.py migrate”. It saves you a lot of time when doing model updates.

Also there is a “Python” submenu with some Python things to do, like removing all the byte-compiled files or formatting all the python files in the project.

What I like

• The eclipse you know, with all the plugins you know
• Works with Django out of the bog
• The fucking debugger!!!
• Syntax check with Pylint (which you can configure)
• Import sorting and fixing (removing unused imports)
• Source formatting for when you have done writing, a little help to get the code prettier, or probably you just want to prettify an old file.

What I don’t like

• The Source formatting could improve, like adding a default docstring to classes and methods/functions
• It lacks of support for flake8.

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