Thanks for all of your comments. I didn't intend for this to turn into a "which IDE should I use?" posting, but everyone's comments gave me food for thought all the same, and convinced me to try Eclipse and WingIDE. Please forgive me for this lengthy explanation of my view.
Much of my original question deals with perception as well as actual functionality. I am a mechanical engineering undergrad who has never taken a computer science class. I've spent 3 summers programming in VB for a large biomedical company, and have used Matlab extensively in school. I've also used fortran and c++, although not nearly as much. I was immediately blown away by the clarity and elegance of Python syntax, which combined with rave testimonies all over the internet made me pursue Python despite some early difficulties. The first python program i tried to write was for my summer job. I wanted to compare two ridiculously large sets of data (1 GB of scientific junk), and display the differences between the sets in a nice grid. long story short i wasted a few days trying to figure out GUI stuff, and ended up programming it in VB. from this first experience i perceived python as elegant but difficult to implement for real world programs. I kept on pursuing python, still attracted to its elegance, and now i'm writing code for independent research in python. I have a feeling though that not many people would keep trying to learn python after such a setback. Before posting this thread I had tried all the free python IDEs i could find, as well as toyed around with kdevelop's python features. i hadn't tried Eclipse, but in installing and looking over it today i'm impressed. this may be what i wanted, despite the size. earlier i was afraid to try the WingIDE trial for fear that i'd really love it, and in a moment of weakness end up spending $200 i dont really have. i just installed it however, and the screenshots and info online make it look great as well. still not a solution to the original problem though, because it ain't free. IDLE is about as basic an IDE as i can imagine. it serves its role, however new python users won't be nearly impressed with it as they are the language. i know the language is the most important thing, however next on the list should be development tools. ideally, after installing just python, people should be blown away by the tools that simplify development as well as blown away by the language itself. the total python experience should leave people wondering "why didn't anyone think of that sooner?" VS is a beast, and i'm not recommending something that huge go into the standard install, but has anyone here used Matlab? The Matlab IDE is intuitive and simple. it has a basic version of all the standard goodies: GUI, debugging, etc. (no built-in source control though, you have to integrate it w/ another system, which is easy as well). it has the familiar prompt window we know and love, plus other windows for browsing objects, files, etc. I just flat-out like it better than the other python IDEs i've tried, which all seem to have one or two of the basic things either absent or too complicated to figure out. A Matlab-like IDE (or something similar) doesn't seem like a monumental leap from IDLE, so why isn't more emphasis in python development put into making the entire python experience "batteries included?" -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
