Integrated Development Environment

An Integrated Development Environment, or IDE, is a program that we can use to write, test, debug, and run Python code. There are many viable options to choose here. There isn’t just one program that you must use to create a Python program, similar to how you aren’t limited to using one specific software to write a paper for a writing course.

Consider the scenario of a student taking an English course at a university. The teacher may assign students to write a paper on a particular subject, word count, and formatting. At this point, a student can choose between a number of options for software to write the paper with: Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, Google Drive, and so on. Regardless which software is chosen, the student can still write a paper that meets the requirements the teacher has set forth.

Deciding which Python IDE to use is a similar type of choice. If you set out to develop a Python program, you should make a choice about what program you want to use to write the code. There are may options that can be used for this, but a few that I can recommend include:

Before you go to download and install one of these IDEs, you should download python! Though there are some differences, these IDEs will often have a few general features in common. Below I show a screenshot from the Mu editor showing where a few of these common features can be found.

image of IDE

(A) The ability to create, save, and load Python files. By convention, a Python code files ends in .py. Ultimately, a Python file isn’t anything fancy, its just a file with a bunch of text in it, but the .py indicates to people and to computers how the file should be treated, as Python code.
(B) A run / stop button. This button can be used to run, or stop, a Python program.
(C) Represents the text area where code can actually be written. Often this will have line numbers on the left of each line.
(D) is the area where the textual code output gets displayed. The technical term for the text that gets sent to this region is the standard output of the program. Until we get to showing graphical or audio output, this is where the text output of your program will go to. The >>> Is the Python command line prompt. In this case, it indicates that the program finished running.

Which of the following features does an IDE typically have?

A "run" or "play" button that is used to execute the code you've typed out.

Yes! Almost all Python IDEs have this feature

A debugging feature, to help programmers discover where the problems with the code are

This is also true! Most IDEs have such capabilities

A code formatter, to automatically help a programmer keep the code neat.

Many IDEs do have this capability, including Mu.

If you choose to work with an IDE other than Mu, that is totally fine. Just make sure to spend time getting used to that particular IDE’s interface for creating, saving, loading, running, and testing your Python code. You also are not limited to the three that I linked to in this lesson. If you stumble across an alternate program that you find more intuitive, use it! As long as it can be used to write and run Python programs, you should still be able to use it to follow-along with these lessons.

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