An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a software application for computer programming. IDE provides comprehensive facilities to programmers for development of software. An IDE mainly consists of 3 different parts. The first part is the source code editor that provides an editor for writing the codes from the program. The next part is the build automation tool that mainly compiles the codes by the programmer. The third part is a debugger whose main task is to test or debug the program for any errors in the code. There are IDE’s available for various programming languages such as Java, Python, C, C++ and others too.
Nowadays most of the modern IDE have an intelligent code completion. The IDE design helps programmer by maximizing the productivity by providing tight-knit components. These components have the similar user interface that allows the programmer to easily use them. Some IDE contains either a compiler or an interpreter such as SharpDevelop and Lazarus. While some other IDE such as NetBeans and Eclipse contains both the compiler and interpreter for the execution of code. Some IDEs are mainly designed for a specific programming language. However, there are many multiple language IDE that allows user to do programming for multiple languages using just one IDE.
Basic Uses of an Integrated Development Environment
The use of an IDE depends on the programming language. However here are some of the basic uses of an IDE.
- An IDE allows the programmer to quickly navigate to a type without worrying about the project.
- It also allows the programmer to easily navigate to other members by using them as hyperlinks.
- It also allows programmers to automatically generate a code depending upon previous codes.
- An IDE also organizes the various imports by the programmer and also adds some appropriate imports.
- It also gives warnings while the user is typing and some error occurs.
- An IDE also keeps the view of files, errors or warnings and source code on the same screen that makes programmers work easy.
- It also makes the running of unit tests easy as the programmer have to run the code from the same window.
- IDE also allows the programmer to navigate directly to the compile time error or runtime exception directly from the error details.
Now, lets know about some of the best known Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the Python programming language. So, here is a list of Top 10 IDE for Python.
1. PyCharm – Best IDE for Python:
PyCharm is one of the best IDE for Python programming. PyCharm comes from the house of JetBrains company. It provides code analysis, graphical debugger, unit tester and version control system. PyCharm supports one of popular web framework Django. It is available in two editions. The first edition is the Community Edition that is an open-source project and available free of cost. The other edition is Professional Edition which is commercial and includes some outstanding set of tools and features.
PyCharm is one of the most popular Python IDE available. Its popularity can be guessed from the fact some big brands like Twitter, Groupon, Spotify, eBay and Telefonica and many other companies have also used the PyCharm IDE for development. PyCharm can easily integrate with IPython notebook. It also supports Anaconda framework and also others scientific packages such as matplotlib and NumPy.
2. PyDev with Eclipse:
PyDev also hosts some other cool features such as smart indent, error markup, source code integration, UML editing and also unit test integration. PyDev also comes in package with another product named Liclipse. Liclipse is a commercial product built on Eclipse. It also provides usability improvements and some other theming options too.
3. Wing IDE:
Wing IDE comes in three different versions. The first version is the basic version which is free of cost. The next version is the personal edition and the last is a much powerful professional edition. One of the best feature of Wing IDE is Debugging. It includes features such as multiprocess debugging, threaded code debugging, auto child process debugging, code stepping etc. It also allows programmers to remotely debug code running on Raspberry Pi.
4. Komodo IDE:
Like most of the Professional Python IDE, it also includes basic features like code refactoring, auto complete and call tips. It also includes some other features such as brackets matching, code browser and go to definition.
5. Spyder IDE:
6. Eric Python:
7. PyScripter:
8. Sublime Text 3:
The Anaconda package also brings a lot of transformation to the Sublime IDE. It provides some features such as code completion and listing for Python to the IDE. There are also tons of themes, very fast user interface, easily configurable IDE and support for various other packages too.
9. Python IDLE:
10. Geany:
Python is one of the oldest programming language and currently one of the mostly used one too. There are a number of IDE available from the beginning of the language. However as the time is changing so the programming landscape is also changing and thus the IDE are also changing very fastly. Now, all the above IDE are different in their own manners but the sole motive of each of the IDE is same to speed up the development of codes. A programmer can select any of that above IDE for Python programming. I hope that this tutorial will have new and emerging programmers to select the best IDE for themselves.