What is Reddit's opinion of Thonny?

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Spyder is more geared toward those who already have been working in Python, and have an understanding of what's involved. As a beginner, I highly recommend looking at Thonny, as it's geared toward learning Python and breaking it down as you code.

My GF is actually just starting learning Python and we came across the exact same question. Being more of a "powerful texteditor + console" kind of guy, I had to compile a list of usable IDEs by googling, and tried to assess the pros/cons for a beginner and pitched it all to her.

In the end, all she wanted is an environment that doesn't get in the way with features she doesn't need and doesn't force her to use the console.

She is now very happy with her choice http://thonny.org/ which seems to do exactly that and is explicitly designed with beginners in mind.

I think an IDE would be better since they have the console built in to test the program. But like the others said it really depends on which one you like better.

Thonny is an alright IDE, I've been using it for months, however it's no Visual Code Studio or PyCharm but and it's free and it's aimed towards beginners.

Thonny Website: http://thonny.org/

I am a new programmer of a few months. I found that using Thonny (http://thonny.org/) really helped me understand how things are evaluated.

Check it out in your spare time, and run this code to get a really simple idea of working through code blocks. You'll just copy and paste the code in, click debug and then click the step into button. It should help you visualize things much better (it helped me).

This is totally unrelated to your problem though - just a visual exercise. From this website: http://www.practicepython.org/

a = [1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 100, 102] b = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 100, 101, 102] c = [] #Create an empty list to dump the matching numbers

for check in a: #Loop named 'check' looking in list a if check in b: #if 'check' is also found in list b print (str(check)) #print the common numbers found (this will create duplicates). # It will loop over each, one at a time if check in b and check not in c: #Looking to see if 'check' variable is found in b list but not c list c.append(check) #Will add 'check' variable to c list

First you should download an environment which can run Python. I use a program called Thonny - go to http://thonny.org and download it. Once you have it click "New" to create a new program and paste the code that I put in my post into it, then click "Run". A new window should pop up with a 2048 grid in it.

Going the IDE route can be easier to begin with. It usually creates a virtual environment so you don't have to install everything to your system. This way, getting the necessary modules/packages is often much more streamlined. Picking IDE is like picking a wife, you might want to try some different girlfriends first... For absolute beginners, the simplicity of Thonny can be appealing. Under "Tools" you can "Manage Packages".

Downloading and installing the python interpreter to Windows is pretty simple though, just go to the offical site, grab the matching executable and run it (direct link). After you install that, you can enter python from the windows command line just by entering "python". Similarly, you can execute scripts by running "python script.py". Getting the packages you want is definitely more of hassle. Using pip you should be able to get most of those you mention but expect to have to google some errors :)

Thonny might help - http://thonny.org/

like mentioned in another comment, PyCharm is good as well with loads of features..

if you get stuck by using other IDEs than IDLE, you could ask for help here until you get the hang of using them :)

I haven't seen a Python editor that allows that. The issue is Python needs to be executed, while other languages like HTML or markup can be written and viewed "live" with a preview editor (Atom or Sublime). But if you use an IDE like this http://thonny.org/ it's not too hard, just write and execute.

I'm checking out that Thonny editor he mentioned, and so far it looks quite good. The separation of editor vs shell is much better than IDLE, the debugger highlights the steps much more nicely, and everything runs way smoother. You should give it a try, might change your mind. Only requires a few more clicks after getting Python installed.

~~The only thing I'm not liking is that the Variables pane only displays the memory address, and you have to consult the Heap pane for the value~~. It also doesn't print \r or \b correctly, same problem as IDLE.

Edit: It turns out that if you disable the Heap pane, then the Variables pane and the debugger show the actual value. That makes more sense. I was just enabling everything to see what it does.