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IDE, whose full name is Integrated Development Environment, translates to integrated development environment. The development of Python has been in its seventh year since May 2010.

Over the past six years, the most commonly used IDE is Eric6 (which started with the 5.x version). I have also tried the famous PyCharm, WingIDE and Eclipse (+ PyDev plug-ins) in the circle. Today, let's focus on a simple review of Eric6 and PyCharm 2016.3.

Face score

Eric6 is based on PyQt development, the program runs even with a BAT file to call, the interface is relatively ugly. PyCharm is based on Java development, its own theme is very beautiful, the style is more unified. In terms of appearance, there is no doubt that PyCharm wins.

By the way, WingIDE, although it also comes with many themes, some parts of the entire window are not controlled by the theme. For example, when you choose a dark theme, there is often a white control in the lower left corner of the window, which is too dazzling.

Speed and memory overhead

From starting to opening a project, I was willing to test these IDE models with a stopwatch. The data are as follows:

The slowest is PyCharm, which takes about 18-20 seconds on average. Even if there are only two plug-ins left, and the parameters of Xms and Xmx are adjusted properly, the fastest running time is 16.5 seconds. Eric takes an average of 11 seconds, and the fastest is WingIDE, which takes only 7 seconds.

In terms of memory overhead, PyCharm is a large user, and it is easy to eat 300-400MB of your memory. Beware of children's shoes with small memory.

UI and resource compilation

During the development process, it is inevitable to adjust the UI and resource files, so it is natural to integrate the compilation of these two items in IDE.

Eric6 natively supports UI and resource file compilation, and its developers have long thought that we need this feature.

As a professional Python IDE, PyCharm is undoubtedly a little inadequate in this respect. To implement UI and resource compilation, you must manually add them to the external tool settings (ask du Niang for specific operations). Although the setting is no different from Eric6, it is always thoughtless by developers.

However, the design of PyCharm as an external tool is commendable, and you can directly integrate the packaging command (I usually use cx_freeze) directly, which is much more convenient.

Intelligent indentation

Indentation is a very important item in the syntax of Python. During the development process, indentation will naturally write code faster if it is more intelligent.

The one who has done the best in this respect is Eric6. What makes it awesome is that no matter where your cursor key is, as long as you press the TAB key, the program will choose the appropriate indent position according to the above code.

PyCharm has a similar design. Its intelligent indentation operation is called Emacs Indent in English (it is recommended to set the shortcut key TAB to it), and the domestic Chinese translation is inexplicably translated into a "macro tab", which must be done by a layman.

But Emacs Indent is a little weak in dealing with whole block indentation, and when we want to move the whole piece of code forward, we can only use another operation called "unindent content," while Eric6 only needs a TAB key.

Font scaling

Although we can set a specific font size for the IDE editor in the setting, it is inevitable that the font will be scaled properly in actual development. Especially on the big screen, if the font is enlarged properly, the eyes will not suffer so much.

Font scaling is available in both IDE. However, Eric6 has already set the shortcut key (using the Ctrl+=/-, or Ctrl+ wheel), but in PyCharm, you have to set this shortcut manually.

Let's call it a tie this round.

Automatically fill in blanks

PEP8's specification requires a space after commas, arithmetic symbols, and so on. Eric does a good job of filling in a space automatically after you type a comma, but PyCharm is obviously not so thoughtful. You have to manually type the blanks one by one, or save it until the end using the Reformat File function to correct it.

Automatic code completion and code normalization

The code auto-completion of both IDE is good. If I had to pick a better one, I would vote for PyCharm, which seems to be more intelligent (I can't give a more accurate evaluation, but I suggest I understand it myself).

In addition to automatic completion, PyCharm will also check your code in a way similar to spell checking. When the code you enter does not conform to specifications such as PEP8, PyCharm will remind you and mark that part of the code. This feature is really sweet, and I have reason to believe that using PyCharm will help us write more standardized code.

In addition, PyCharm will also check the variables used in the current method, and when there are variables that are unused, inconsistent, input errors, etc., PyCharm will also mark them one by one to let you know at a glance.

Version control

Version control can also be regarded as the standard of IDE! Both Eric6 and PyCharm have version control modules, but I would like to think that PyCharm is more detailed in this area, combines well with GibHub, and is willing to use it very well.

Database connection, viewing

This feature is only an optional configuration. Both IDE have the function of browsing database content, and its convenience is that when we want to view a certain item of data in the database, we can view it directly in IDE without opening special database management tools (such as SQLite's SQLite Expert, PostGreSQL's PG Admin,MySQL 's PHPMyAdmin, etc.).

Eric6 comes with a built-in SQL browser, which has a relatively simple interface and has to be reset every time it is opened, which is not convenient enough.

PyCharm uses the plug-in Database Tools and SQL to connect and view the database, so it is enough to check the data on a temporary basis.

Bookmark

In the development process, we often need to switch between different locations in a document, when the bookmark function will bring us a lot of convenience.

Both IDE have bookmarks, but PyCharm does better, and its bookmarks won't be erased just because you quit the program. Eric6, on the other hand, will clear your bookmark settings every time you exit the program.

TODO

When you are willing to pile up the code and think of something like the next step to improve, you will often insert a line in the document, write "# todo," at the beginning of the line, and then write in the thoughts at that time. In this way, we can gradually improve the software developed according to the tags and contents of todo in the future.

Both IDE support the Todo feature, which collects every line of your current project marked with todo for you to view at any time. It's just that there is a slight gap in terms of functional perfection:

PyCharm highlights this line when you type "# todo," to make it very conspicuous. Eric6 does not highlight "# todo," by default. PyCharm's todo supports case, and Eric6 only supports uppercase by default. If you want to support different formats, you need to set it separately.

By contrast, PyCharm won by a narrow margin.

Help documentation

Eric6 comes with a WebKit kernel help browser, when you have set the path to help documents such as Python/PyQt/Pyside/Qt, you can click on the links to these documents directly in the help menu, and Eric6 will call the help browser to display these documents.

Although PyCharm has an external document setting and corresponding menu commands, its function is so weak that it should be perfected.

In addition, although PyCharm provides a "powerful" function of Search EveryWhere, it is shaped like a chicken rib because the matching of search results is often not satisfactory.

Conclusion

Through the above comparison and analysis, I believe that everyone will come to their own answer. Let me briefly state the point of view that I am willing to take:

If you are a face control, please choose PyCharm; if your computer configuration is slightly lower (especially memory), running PyCharm feels slow and stuck, please choose most of the functions of Eric6;, these two IDE are more or less the same. What I care most is that PyCharm can't fill in the blanks automatically after commas. I hope developers can improve it in subsequent versions. As for many children's shoes that are still using non-IDE (such as editors such as vim, emacs, sublime text, etc.), the suggestion is that IDE can make your development more efficient. It looks like you can do most of the work with these editors, but don't forget that while you go to great lengths to get all the plug-ins, these features on IDE are already very mature, so why build your own wheels?

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Author: willing to

Starter: willing to give up Sina blog

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