The Mac needs to be an x86 Mac with a fair bit of memory The upside is that you and the student don't need to hassle with differences in the IDE that may not be accounted for in your instruction materials. Gas fireplace inserts. Visual Studio is also the best C++ IDE for Windows operating system. The Express version is free of cost and is best suited for one person but if there is a group project involved then one has to go for Pro Version for which you have to pay a nominal sum.

Another (albeit non-free) option is to install VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop on the Mac and run Windows with Visual Studio in a VM. This works really pretty well. The downsides are: • it'll cost money for the virtual machine software and Windows (the school may have some academic licensing that may help here) • the Mac needs to be an x86 Mac with a fair bit of memory The upside is that you and the student don't need to hassle with differences in the IDE that may not be accounted for in your instruction materials.

Python is everywhere. These days, it seems it powers everything from major websites to desktop utilities to enterprise software. Python has been used to write all, or parts of, popular software projects like dnf/yum, OpenStack, OpenShot, Blender, Calibre, and even the original BitTorrent client. It also happens to be one of my favorite programming languages.

Personally, Python has been my go-to language through the years for everything from class projects in college to tiny scripts to help me automate recurring tasks. It's one of few languages out there that is both easy to get started with for beginners yet incredibly powerful when beginners graduate to working on real-world projects. • • • • • To edit Python programs, you have a number of options. Some people still prefer a basic text editor, like Emacs, VIM, or Gedit, all of which can be extended with features like syntax highlighting and autocomplete.

But a lot of power users working on large projects with complex code bases prefer an integrated development environment (IDE) to the text editor plus terminal combination. The line between an advanced text editor and a slim IDE isn't always clear, and we'll leave it up to you to decide exactly which features you require for your development needs. Let's look at some of the most popular options available to Python developers and see how they stack up. All three are cross-platform and can be used on your operating system of choice. Eclipse with PyDev It's hard to write anything about open source integrated development environments without covering, which has a huge developer community and countless plugins available allowing you to customize it to meet nearly any need you can imagine. But this kitchen sink approach is also one of Eclipse's downsides. Many criticize it as bloated, and performance on low spec systems certainly can be an issue.

That said, if you're coming to Python from a background in a different language, particularly Java, Eclipse may already be your go to IDE. And if you make use of its many features, you may find life without them difficult. Adds a huge number of features to Eclipse, far beyond simple code highlighting.

It handles code completion, integrates Python debugging, adds a token browser, refactoring tools, and much more. For those working with the popular Python web framework, PyDev will allow you to create new Django projects, execute Django actions via hotkeys, and use a separate run configuration just for Django. Eclipse and PyDev are both made available under the. Eric Eric is my personal favorite IDE for Python editing. Named after Monty Python's Eric Idle, Eric is actually written in Python using the Qt framework.