Thank you for the suggestion about WinPdb. I will try that. I don't use a debugger a whole lot either. My code is typically just barely complex enough to need a debugger, but not so simple that I can be productive without a good IDE (i.e. with just a text editor, or with just ipython notebook).
I did go get and try PyCharm (community edition). My experience was not successful with it yet. As it is mainly built for software developers, not scientific programmers, I found it frustratingly complex and inflexible. I don't need the rigidity of keeping all files/folders as a designated 'project', as it requires. My code is oriented around interactive work, and is based on ipython (including some of its magic commands)-- neither of which go well when using the main 'run console' that is the default around which PyCharm is built. (Unless I am misunderstanding something ... see https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/requests/655254?flash_digest=f0b9cdbc61c6b9f58c958b0e0c6e3ed5df1a3e23.) Furthermore, their debugger may be good but it is only well-integrated with their 'run console', not necessarily the ipython console, as far as I could tell. I had some existing code (modest number of files and simple folder tree) that worked well within Spyder and didn't need to modify the path or mess with PYTHONPATH or any other environment variables, and I found that to get it to run inside PyCharm I had to let PyCharm change the path and use PYTHONPATH. Furthermore my code imported cx_Oracle (a version that causes no error) but when run in PyCharm that import found and used a different cx_Oracle, that came with PyCharm, and caused an obscure Win32 error. So for now I am sticking with Spyder. If I find that WinPdb meets my debugging needs with Spyder, then the main thing about Spyder that I still find limiting is that I can't reorder tabs in the editor (which of course PyCharm does rather well). On Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 2:28:25 PM UTC-5, Nikolay Karelin wrote: > > Hello Dan, > > If the debugger in Spyder is limiting for you, you can try WinPdb - it is > not quite supported, but rather well written. Alternatively, you can use > some 'real' Python IDE with powerful debugger. I prefer PyCharm (free > version is ok) for that. > > But when I once asked on local Python meetup "Guys, which debugger do you > prefer?", most of audience told - print or logging is enough except really > complex situations ;) > > On Wednesday, March 9, 2016 at 8:02:24 PM UTC+3, Dan Codiga wrote: >> >> I am a scientific programmer with many years of Matlab experience, and >> have been using Spyder over the past several months as I learn Python and >> transition to using it instead of Matlab. Overall I am happy with Spyder as >> an IDE. (Using it on Win7 64bit.) >> >> However, there are at least a few aspects that I consider to be important >> weaknesses. In particular: the debugger is quite limited and frustrating; I >> can't drag-drop to reorder tabs in the editor; and oftentimes the File >> Explorer doesn't update (if there is an easy way to trigger an update >> please point me to it). >> >> Will the next release of Spyder (3.0, as I understand it) address these >> issues? If so, in what ways? >> >> And what is the latest guesstimate for when the next release will be out? >> >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "spyder" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to spyderlib+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to spyderlib@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/spyderlib. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
