Holcombe:PythonIDEs

Running python interactively from the Terminal alone is frustrating because you can't use arrow keys for history, no auto-complete, etc. Also there is no text editor linked to it. You will probably want to use an IDE that has built in text editor

From any interpreter, execute a script using execfile('test.py')

IPython

Doesn't have a text editor, but gives you a command line that's better with command history, tab completion, other goodies

I updated to IPython0.1 12Nov2009 on forest-laptop by downloading the .egg file, putting it in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/site-packages, and from terminal there "sudo easy_install ipython-0.10-py2.5.egg"

In my .profile file in my home directory I added the following lines:

PYTHONSTARTUP="pythonstartup.py"
export PYTHONSTARTUP
PYTHONPATH="~/Library/IPython"
export PYTHONPATH

I then created a pythonstartup.py file so that IPython automatically run when start python. IPython has trouble finding readline, hence the second line:

import sys
sys.path.insert(0,'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/site-packages/readline-2.5.1-py2.5- macosx-10.5-i386.egg')
import IPython 
sys.argv = [sys.argv[0], '-pylab'] #needed to allow interactive plotting
IPython.Shell.start().mainloop()

To quickly open code from IPython and edit it, I added this to my .profile:

alias edit='open -a TextWrangler'
EDITOR="edit -w" #w is special flag allowing TextWrangler to be used, see man page for edit
export EDITOR

Also customize coloring and such by editing this file /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/site-packages/ipython-0.9.1-py2.5.egg/IPython/UserConfig/ipy_user_conf.py

Dr. Python

Dr. Python is good because it checks indentation. Instead of using {} to delimit code blocks, it uses indentation like so: if X

 asdf
 asdf

dddd ---Each line needs to be offset by the same number of spaces/tabs. Dr. Python checks to make sure this is true so you're not tripped up by invisible characters like tabs masquerading as spaces

if X

 asdf
 asdf