Today I have done some more learning of python. Dive Into Python so far has been my favourite way to learn the language as the progression through topics seems fast, and the author assumes that the programmer is not an idiot while still offering useful tips!
However, I like an IDE to help me program to I started looking today at the Python options there are in linux. I didn’t feel like spending too much time looking, so I did a quick check through the software installer in Ubuntu. The installed and had a brief look at the following options:
- Eric
- PyDev w/ Eclipse
- Pida
- SPE
What astounded me most was how simple to use all these IDEs were. Within seconds I could figure out how to use them, but I didn’t feel like doing an in-depth review of each.
Out of those listed, I chose to go with PyDev because Eclipse is cross-platform and looks good. It wasn’t so much that I liked it particularly much but I had some problems with the other choices. Eric is Qt based which looks horrible in Gnome on Ubuntu (other than that, the range of features is fantastic) . SPE was unfortunately not as stable as I would have liked (it is still quite young but promising looking) and Pida was great, albeit a little too simple and clean for my liking.
So once I settled on Eclipse I had to figure out how to get it working. In theory it should be as simple as installing the eclipse and pydev packages from the universe repository in Ubuntu, but little did I know post-install configuration was actully require, and something called Jython also needs to be installed.
Basically once you’ve installed those three packages you need to go to the preferences page in Eclipse, and under the PyDev options set paths to the Python and Jython interpretters. On my system the paths were /usr/bin/python and /usr/lib/eclipse/org.python.pydev.jython_1.2.0.jython.jar respectively.
After that the PyDev plugin should work fine. I’m not sure why this setup process isn’t automatic when the package is installed, but once you know the procedure it isn’t too hard!
November 17, 2007 at 12:34 am
Thanks for this quick heads up, google turned me here with “ubuntu pydev” and I can’t say I’m disappointed, you gave me a quick overview of what was needed.
My main problem was that I had installed the Eclipse using the regular aptitude / apt-get cycle but I never thought of getting the pydev plugin that way. Updating straight from the Pydev download site in Eclipse proved not to work because the Eclipse is “only” 3.2 and the latest Pydev requires 3.3 so the automatic update/install failed when following the Pydev install instructions.
January 12, 2009 at 8:39 am
Thanks!
March 17, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Thanks man. You got me set up in no time!
May 14, 2009 at 5:49 pm
You are not required to install jython in order to run PyDev. I use it now with only Python 2.6.
Jython is actually a version of python that cannot use python libraries but can use Java libraries instead even mix with java source code.
June 25, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Thanks a lot