What's a good IDE for Python on Mac OS X?

Question

I'm about to start a new job where the coding practices are heavily centered around TDD and refactoring, and whose primary development language is Python. I come from the Java world, and have been a confident user of Eclipse for a good, long time. When not working in Java, I use emacs.

I'm looking for an IDE for Python that will give me a lot of the capabilities I've grown used to with Eclipse, not only for refactoring but in terms of code completion, project management, SCM integration (currently CVS, but likely to switch to git one of these days) et al.

What IDE should I use?

Solution 1

Have tried many different (Kate, Eclipse, Scite, Vim, Komodo): each one have some glitches, either limited functions, or slow and unresponsive. Final choice after many years: Emacs + ropemacs + flymake. Rope project file open dialog is extremely quick. Rope refactoring and code assist functions are super helpful. Flymake shows syntax mistakes. Emacs is the most configurable editor. I am very happy with this config. Python related part of config is here: public.halogen-dg.com browser/alex-emacs-settings/configs/cfg_python.el

Solution 2

My 2 pennies, check out PyCharm http://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/

(also multi-platform)

Solution 3

I use TextMate for all my Python programming needs. It's not an IDE per se, but it does a lot of stuff that an IDE does (without all the cruft of an IDE). It has syntax highlighting, code folding, integration with various SCMs through the use of additional bundles (I know it supports SVN, Git, Mercurial, Darcs, and probably a few others). It's also quite extensible and customizable (again, through the use of bundles). It also has a basic concept of projects. One place where it doesn't shine, though, is in code completion; some bundles have limited support for code completion, but it's generally not as amazing as that of most language-specific IDEs. Given how awesome TextMate is, though, I don't know sacrificing that. TextMate's definitely made me much more productive.

Solution 4

Pydev for Eclipse, as others have mentioned, is good.

Netbeans has a beta Python plugin that is a little rough around the edges, but could turn into something really cool.

Additionally there is a long list of programming centric text editors for the mac, that may or may not fit your needs.

• Textmate - costs money, people love this program, but I haven't used it enough to see what all the fuss is about.
• Jedit - Java based text editor, has some nice features, but the startup time isn't great (due to Java).
• CarbonEmacs - Decent Emacs port.
• AquaEmacs - Better Emacs port.
• TextWrangler - Lite, free (as in beer) verision of BBEdit.
• BBEdit - The old guard. The defacto editor before Textmate stole its limelight. Expensive.
• Smultron - Very nice editor, the UI is similar to Textmate.
• Idle - Python's own little editor, has some nice features, but also some major problems. I've personally found it too unstable for my usage.
• Sublime Text - This is really sweet text editor that has some surprisingly good Python support.
• Pycharm - Another solid full on IDE for Python.

Solution 5

Eclipse with Pydev works best for me on any platform.

View more solutions

Comments

[Nick]

I like Python in NetBeans IDE. It's pretty good--and free.

[e-satis]

And anyway, who needs a full featured IDE to dev in Python ? The language is design to be coded with bare hands ;-)

[Ryan Townshend]

Thanks for the link to TextWrangler, exactly what I was looking for. sharp little editor, snaps open quick, even will run basic python scripts with little fuss.

[Chris R]

This turns out to be the solution I ended up going with, after trying Pydev, TextMate (long time user here, so it was easy to try :) and No, No VIM! ;)

[lukmac]

Why no vim? There is a article about using VIM as python IDE: blog.dispatched.ch/2009/05/24/vim-as-python-ide .But i havent tried it. I am just starting to find some good python IDE on Mac.

[Mike Bevz]

What version of Netbeans are you talking about? I have not found anything for 7.0+

[Cobby]

@e-satis Developers who want on-the-fly syntax checking and intelligent auto-completing?

[e-satis]

@cobby: You can have with very basic free editators such as gedit. ANd if you want advanced feature, you still can avoid IDE by using a advanced text editor such as textmate or sublime text. But anyway, I coded Python without on the fly syntax checking for years, and while I do use it now, I can confirm it's not a handicap as it would be in C or in Java.

[tomwhipple]

The drawback with textmate is that you can't easily display two files within the same project at the same time.

[Smandoli]

@tomwhipple -- yes, coming from Notepad++, definitely a liability.

[Smandoli]

I can't get code-folding to work with TM (that is, not properly), and help indicates that's just the way it is. Solution?

[Afshin Mehrabani]

JetBrains is good, pycharm also.

[Wingware]

Note that Wing 4 and earlier required X11 on the Mac but Wing 5+ runs native.

[cwallenpoole]

As a note: PyDev chokes on Celery, so be wary.

[samthebest]

If the question was "What's an IDE for python that actually works and actually has basic functionality" then PyCharm would be the ONLY answer

[Solid Soft]

fabioz.com/pydev not working. PLease suggest with proper link.

[AntonyFalegk]

@SoliSoft PyDev Extensions are now merged with PyDev, links updated.

[Dima Lituiev]

I also love Spyder on Ubuntu, but on Mac it is incredibly slow

[sdd]

pycharm must have been mentioned.