Python 3 IDE for teaching [closed]

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With Python 3 maturing and slowly gaining adoption, we're taking the plunge and adopting it in our introductory programming classes for kids aged 12-18. Is there a free (preferably open source) IDE you'd recommend that supports Python 3, preferably meeting the following criteria in order of necessity:

1. Cross platform (Windows and Linux)
2. Standard features: syntax highlighting, auto-indent, etc.
3. Run button, rather than console where you have to type "python foo.py".
4. Context-sensitive help (e.g. when they hover over math.floor() it should give help for the function).
5. Embedded Python shell.
6. Bui开发者_StackOverflow中文版lt-in debugger
7. Useless crud stripped, e.g. they don't need refactoring tools during an intro class and auto-completion gets in the way of teaching. Along the same lines, it should be lightweight as some kids will go home to old PCs unable to run beefy IDEs such as Eclipse.

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Komodo Edit meets most of your requirements (as others mentioned in the comments) and supports Python 3 from version 6:

• Open source and free.
• Cross platform (Windows and Linux, also Mac) ― built on XULRunner.
• Standard features: syntax highlighting, auto-indent, etc. ― Komodo has the best Python auto-completion I've seen; they'll do automatic type inference from variable assignments.
• Run button, rather than console where you have to type "python foo.py". ― Can be simply added.
• Context-aware help ― supported when you press ( plus it will do this nicely on objects that have been instantiated from other classes.
• Embedded Python shell ― The full Python shell integration is only in the commercial IDE, but you can easily hook up a shell into a command output window by adding a toolbox recipe for python -i.
• Built-in debugger ― Unfortunately not (but neither do lots of the light-weight IDEs recommended above) ― this is only in the commercial Komodo IDE. I'd recommend using Winpdb alongside Komodo Edit for development ― it's faster than the Komodo IDE debugger (and lots of other debuggers) in my experience. Whether this'll fly with high school students would be the question.
• Useless crud stripped ― Komodo's clearly got more stuff in it that IDLE so it depends how you see this. Auto-completion can be turned off.
• Lightweight for kids who go home to old PCs unable to run beefy IDEs such as Eclipse ― This may also be a downfall ― I'd say Komodo is less beefy than Eclipse though.

Extra things to consider:

• Komodo is great at web development: it supports nice syntax highlighting and code completion on embedded CSS inside HTML etc…
• Support for extensions (along the same lines as Firefox, plus the extensions can be written in Python) ― this could be useful if you need some tweaks to the UI etc for the courses.

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Eclipse + pydev can do that. It's free. UI isn't very simple, but you have debugger, highlight, shell and completion.

UPD: Here is sample screenshot. It's pretty simple imo.
12-18 is more like teenager, not a kid, I'm sure that they fluent with much more complicated interfaces like facebook :)

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The Python IDLE has most of these features (never used the debugger before so I don't know how good it is). It's probably the most minimalist Python IDE out there. See http://docs.python.org/library/idle.html for more. IBM also did an overview of IDLE here.

Also, it's already included in the Windows binary (which is what most schools use, at least here), so you won't have to do any special work to get it up and running. It's available for Linux too.

I've never tried PyScripter before, but it does seem to offer what you need in an IDE and seems fairly simple. Only con is that it's Windows only.

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JetBrains PyCharm is terrific. Not free, though.

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WingWare's WingIDE is fantastic. I'm not sure if the free Wing 101 has all the features you're looking for, but the personal and professional editions are great little IDEs.

[ http://wingware.com ]

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Pyscripter is a nice IDE,has all features you ask for.

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IEP is another lightweight option that should meet all of your requirements.

It has similar goals to spyder (which is quite nice, and has been mentioned by a couple of other people) but is a bit more lightweight and does support python3.

It's worth taking a look at anyway...

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Is there a free (preferably open source) IDE you'd recommend that supports Python 3,

ActiveState Komodo Edit is free and open source, that also supports Python 3.

Cross platform (Windows and Linux)

Since Komodo is based on the Firefox code base, it runs with native look & feel on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Standard features: syntax highlighting, auto-indent, etc.

Yup.

Run button, rather than console where you have to type "python foo.py".

Yup. Here's a blog post of mine demonstrating an use (using pep8) of the Run dialog. There is also a "Toolbox" feature when you can save Run configurations.

Contest-aware help (e.g. when they hover over math.floor() it should give help for the function).

Komodo does that (Cmd+hover also works), and more.

Embedded Python shell. Built-in debugger

These two features are only available in Komodo IDE. ActiveState provides free licenses to qualified educational institutions.

Useless crud stripped, e.g. they don't need refactoring tools during an intro class and auto-completion gets in the way of teaching.

Auto-complete and other features can be disabled in Preferences.

Along the same lines, it should be lightweight as some kids will go home to old PCs unable to run beefy IDEs such as Eclipse.

While Komodo is definitely not as beefy as Eclipse, it depends on what you mean by "old PCs". If it can run Firefox 3, then Komodo (which is based on Firefox 3 codebase) too should be able to run on it.

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Wing IDE is free for classroom use, including the Wing Pro and Wing Personal product levels. See https://wingware.com/store/free

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Give a try to Spyderlib (Spyder is the Scientific PYthon Development EnviRonment)

Screenshot

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I'm going to go in the opposite direction of Eclipse/Pydev (too big) and recommend SciTE (too small). No, I'm not comfortable even calling it an IDE, but it really nails points 1 and 2, and it is extremely lightweight, suitable for even the wimpiest possible computers that are capable of running Python 3 (or Python 2.3 for that matter).

I think Python is such a nice, small, simple language, if you are only teaching the basics, that you really don't need a full-blown IDE. I actually find learning an IDE more difficult than learning Python; plus having an IDE sometimes obscures what is part of the language and what is part of the development environment.

Edit: The list of criteria in the original question was edited. Now SciTE actually meets at least the first three. At the time of this edit, those are (1) runs on Windows and Linux, (2) has typical programming editor features like syntax highlighting and so forth, (3) has a button to execute the script.

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It's Windows only, but the PythonWin IDE that comes with Mark Hammond's pywin32 package meets all your requirements including support for Python 3.1. Download it at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/files/

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I am teaching myself python, and atm, GEANY works best for me.

Geany is a text editor using the GTK2 toolkit with basic features of an integrated development environment. It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages. It supports many filetypes and has some nice features.

You can download it here

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I have been hearing a lot of praises about Aptana Studio recently ( made by the coders of PyDev ).
http://aptana.com/products/studio3/download
Personally using Eclipse + PyDev and really recommend it.

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PyCharm is awesome. Looks good, perform nicely and has now a Free Community Edition!