This is going off-topic as not relevant to BBEdit, but I'll risk the velvet-covered iron fist of moderation. Apologies in advance.

There's a lot of differing opinions about which version of Python to learn. My opinion is learn both, but if you must choose one, learn Python 3.

Don't mangle your system Python by installing a bunch of Python packages into it. Use a virtual environment, which allows me to install Python packages separate from my system Python and from which I can link to any version of Python I may have installed. Additionally, it simplifies my Python projects. When I create a project, I put the venv inside my project folder. If I'm just playing around, I can easily toss one directory.

You can install multiple versions of Python on your Mac, and I recommend doing so. Python 3 includes `pyvenv`[1] for creating virtual environments. To install Python 3.5, you can download an installer from python.org[2] (what it appears you have already done and is easier to do) or use a package manager like homebrew[3] (which is more useful down the road, but is kind of advanced). I prefer the latter because it allows me to use `pyenv`[4] to easily install all versions of Python for testing my projects.

As far as resources for learning Python, I highly recommend your local Python user group, which you can find through meetup.com or the Python wiki[5]. There are also a couple of international groups, PyLadies[6] and Django Girls[7], which I've found to be super welcoming to all Python newbies.

For learning Python programming, see the Learning section on python.org[8]. There are lots of good books and websites. These are some of my favorites because they cover both Python 2 and 3.
http://learning-python.com/books/about-lp5e.html
http://www.checkio.org/

You can increase and decrease the font size in any of PyCharm Professional's active windows, although this might not apply in the PyCharm Edu version[9]. PyCharm Professional is an excellent IDE. However a full IDE can be too overwhelming for beginners, hence PyCharm Edu or BBEdit may be less visually noisy and intimidating.

[1] https://docs.python.org/dev/library/venv.html
[2] https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-350/
[3] http://brew.sh/
[4] https://github.com/yyuu/pyenv
[5] https://wiki.python.org/moin/LocalUserGroups
[6] http://www.pyladies.com/
[7] https://djangogirls.org/
[8] https://www.python.org/about/gettingstarted/
[9] https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/help/zooming-in-the-editor.html

--steve

p.s. -- IRC is also a great way to ask questions and get answers, but I tend to use it after I've exhausted all other resources, including a search engine and Stack Overflow.


On 11/26/15 at 4:24 PM, achim.sieb...@gmail.com (Achim Siebert) pronounced:

You can just type your python program into BBEdit, save it as myapp.py or some such, and press Cmd+R to run it. BBEdit will open a window with the output. If you want an interactive Python, you may use the Terminal app - it can be set to a bigger font size in its preferences. Just type "python" followed by the return key into it and you can start putting in Python code - try "print("Hello world!")" ;-). PyCharm is a good choice, it's my preferred Python IDE. But you're right in that the fonts of the output window could be bigger. For smaller projects I use just BBEdit. OS X comes with Python 2.7 preinstalled - to learn programming you don't need a higher version than that (and also later on it's sufficient for most tasks).

On Thursday, 26 November 2015 23:32:22 UTC+1, davidas3 wrote:

Hi,

My daughter (15) and I have begun learning programming using Python. In a thread I saw that BBEdit could be used as a console to write code. I've upgraded my license from v. 4.5 to 11 and, while I'm proficient enough in Mac OS X, I'm at odds figuring out how to use BBEdit with Python 3.5. Can't figure out how to set Python up. PyCharm Edu's default text is too small to be practical for both of us to work together. Can BBEdit replace the Python Console? If, where and how can I instruct Python (or v.v. BBEdit) to link up? Any help or instructions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance for your time and consideration!

All the best,

David



------------------------
Steve Piercy, Soquel, CA

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