In my last post I talked about not being able to find a good Python editor/IDE other than vim. Nothing has really changed since then but there was another editor and IDE that was brought to my attention which I failed to point out. Let’s talk about them!

Editors/IDE’s

Emacs

While talking with Tim Bielawa I was reminded about Emacs since it’s what Tim uses. Emacs has such amazing integration that people sometimes say it’s an operating system itself! I’ve really only ever given Emacs two real shots at being my main editor. The first time was when I was just starting to get into programming and was reading a lot about what other programmers and system administrators used. At first it seemed a lot easier than vi but I ended up running with vi/vim since, at the very least, vi seemed to always be present on every Linux/BSD box I worked with by default. The second attempt was after I promised a few Emacs users at work that I’d give it another fair shot. I said I would use Emacs when I’d normally use vim for a full week knowing that it would force me to learn more about the editor. It wasn’t easy to stop trying to use mode editing but I was able to code without feeling too contained by the editor (Note: the contained feeling was me not knowing the editor well, not Emacs itself. It was really obvious that Emacs is a powerful editor). My biggest gripes from the week long test were around needing to install emacs on systems for use (which is sort of a silly one, I admit) and I felt some of the commands were way to long. I don’t remember the last one off the top of my head but I do remember that one command had a bunch of dashes and was frustrating every time I needed to use it. I think it’s about time I try it again and see if I can overcome my hurdles trying to use it efficiently. Who knows, maybe third time’s the charm!

Cloud9

Cloud9 is really cool. It’s not your grandfather’s IDE by any stretch. As the name implies the application exists out in the cloud (They use Openshift). I love the idea that I can start editing code with full IDE features from any machine I’m currently occupying. I have not tried using Cloud9 with a tablet (with keyboard of course!) yet but if that works then this thing would have rockstar status in my mind. I’ve used it for a few projects for both ease of use and to test out some of the features Cloud9 boasts. Being that it is on Openshift the IDE has it’s own platform letting you install tools and dependencies. There are also some collaboration features which I have not tried out yet mainly because I’m not sure how that works when you are using Github (IE: can they push code under your name or are they restricted?). I would use Cloud9 a lot more if it wasn’t for the Internet. While Cloud9 is pretty responsive in most cases but due to some point in the network connection between “here” and “there” things slow down or stop responding for a second or two. If this was something other than coding I probably wouldn’t care that much … but this is coding. Any hiccups while editing breaks concentration and slows down progress. One other issue I noticed was the lack of preferences across ones instances. Say you have two projects in Cloud9. Each project has it’s own IDE instance. If you want to set preferences for both IDE instances you will have to open each on it’s own and set them. You can not set any kind of global default preferences for all your instances. Hopefully they will add that functionality as I’m pretty positive I’m not the only person who finds that a bit weird. Over time Cloud9 and similar IDE’s will find ways to speed up and add better preference support but until then, in my mind, Cloud9 is straddling the line between full contender and really cool tech preview to keep my eye on.