Is visual studio a good IDE for Python?

How do I install Eclipse for Python on OSX?

• Googling Eclipse Python yields PyDev, which appears to be a plugin for Eclipse... but also for Aptana Studio 2 and 3. A visit to the http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ page yields 13 possible options: Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers, Eclipse Classic (does that mean legacy behind the times?), Eclipse IDE for Java Developers, Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers, and so on. Nothing generic. Nothing Python. What the heck is going on?

• Answer:

  If you're going to develop only in Python, get Aptana Studio. This will provide an Eclipse setup with the PyDev Python plugin, as well as other plugins to support Aptana's features - http://www.aptana.com/products/studio3 . This setup will make it harder to install other Eclipse plugins, whether from the Eclipse Foundation or third-parties. I don't recommend doing that anyway - in my experience, the configurations get messy. I use separate Eclipse packages for different programming requirements. If you already have an Eclipse installation, get an Eclipse package then add PyDev separately. The Java Development is the easiest one to start with. It is possible to start with a smaller distribution without Java, but it is not practical for most people - see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2992749/getting-a-lightweight-installation-of-java-eclipse . If you want a clean Eclipse setup only for PyDev, without the other Aptana features, then you should also build your own installation This situation is because Eclipse is actually not an IDE by itself, but a framework to build IDEs on. Eclipse is best known as a Java IDE, but the Java development capability is not because Eclipse itself is written in Java and runs as a JVM. The Java and C/C++ bundles are technically similar to Aptana Studio in terms of packaging. The difference is that the bundles and plugins are officially provided "in house" by the Eclipse Foundation. The Eclipse framework core does not contain any language support.