On 12/27/2011 10:41 PM, Eelco wrote:
*Your suggestion of VIM is especially objectionable. Though I am sure it is a great tool to you, the subject here is beginner education. Just because it is a good tool for you, does not make it a good tool for a beginner.
Before using VIM, I used to use gedit (and still do, though not as often now); I don't think I've ever had any problem with not using a full blown IDE with Python. I generally don't miss not using an IDE since Python doesn't have the tradition of using overly verbose names like in Java.
I'm personally of the opinion that beginners generally should start with a simple programmer text editors (gedit is a good example). Firstly, you don't want to confuse beginners with IDE vs language features; secondly, at the size of the problem beginners typically had, they don't **need** 95% of those features; and if you teach beginners powerful IDE features too early, by the time their problem gets big enough that the IDE features would actually help, they'd already forgotten about them.
IPython bundled with a lightweight but function-rich and non-hacker- but-WYSIWYG editor would be a great choice. But until that comes around, pycharm it is for me.
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