On Feb 8, 2005, at 5:46 PM, Troy Rollins wrote:
I'm a developer who primarily works with higher level languages, and integrated tools. Director, REALbasic, Revolution. I've done plenty of advanced scripting with those tools, and am trying to move into Python for the open-source benefits, among other things. I've just ordered several books which should help me with the scripting hurdles, and the methodologies... but no matter how many web sites I scan, and how many downloads I've done, I can't quite see how to build and maintain a cohesive toolset. There are thousands of individual parts and pieces, lots of semi-working IDEs and debuggers...
Welcome to free software?
I've looked through some of the archives for this list, but I've yet
to find anything written for Mac users that is aimed at -
Getting you, the Mac user who is familiar with scripting, up and running with -
1) Python
2) An IDE and debugger (Xcode?)
3) A GUI toolkit (wxWidgets?)
I'd highly recommend PyObjC if cross-platform isn't an immediate goal. Other than that, wxPython seems to be the default, but you'll probably have to fight with it to do what you want.
From my end, I think I have evrything running, but I don't know if Iwant to tackle this without the "security" of an environment which includes code colorization (if not completion), a debugger, and ideally a interactive interpreter tied in for command line testing. I've taken a look at several of them, but they all seem to have stability issues. Can Xcode behave like what a Python developer would like, with the above mentioned features? Is it easy to set up? If so, that would seem to be the way to go. Is there a better option?
No, Xcode can not provide you with any more than syntax highlighting. Debugging is not an option beyond interacting with pdb on a console (same as you would from Terminal). It's possible to write such a feature, but there is no public API for doing so, so nobody is likely to do it.
PyOXIDE is out there, Mac OS X native, and open source, but it might be immature (I don't have real experience with it, so I can't say). All the rest are either ancient and featureless (the MacPython IDE), or based on cross-platform toolkits and aren't very Mac-like. I have heard good things about Wing, which is a commercial IDE for Python, but only runs under X11 for Mac OS X.
I apologize for the newbiness of the post, but Python is a natural location for a lot of different types of people to migrate to, and I've noted a running theme about that in some recent posts here. For those of us with limited command line experience, and no C++ or low-level programming experience, it is a bit bewildering. There is almost too much info available, and none of it is aimed at getting you set up with a development toolset which can really get you off the ground, and behaves anything like an integrated experience. To move from a commercial IDE with many bells and whistles (like Director) into a black and white text editor would seem a bit harsh.
Most text editors worth using have syntax coloring, SubEthaEdit, BBEdit, Xcode, etc. Even the ones you would use from a terminal (Emacs, Vim) are going to have syntax highlighting.
-bob
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