A note on IDEs
Just a few words about IDEs. To follow the examples in this book, you do not need one; any decent text editor will do fine. If you want to have more advanced features, such as syntax coloring and auto-completion, you will have to get yourself an IDE. You can find a comprehensive list of open-source IDEs (just Google “Python IDEs”) on the Python website.
Fabrizio uses Visual Studio Code, from Microsoft. It is free to use and it provides many features out of the box, which one can even expand by installing extensions.
After working for many years with several editors, including Sublime Text, this was the one that felt most productive to him.
Heinrich, on the other hand, is a hardcore Neovim user. Although it might have a steep learning curve, Neovim is a very powerful text editor that can also be extended with plugins. It also has the benefit of being compatible with its predecessor, Vim, which is installed in almost every system a software developer regularly works on.
Two important pieces of advice:
- Whatever IDE you decide to use, try to learn it well so that you can exploit its strengths, but don’t depend on it too much. Practice working with Vim (or any other text editor) once in a while; learn to be able to do some work on any platform, with any set of tools.
- Whatever text editor/IDE you use, when it comes to writing Python, indentation is four spaces. Do not use tabs, do not mix them with spaces. Use four spaces, not two, not three, not five. Just use four. The whole world works like that, and you do not want to become an outcast because you were fond of the three-space layout.
