What IDE is best for someone new to Python ?

TextMate, or Emacs if you know it.

No, they're not IDEs. But I bet you'll find them to be better than IDEs.

I've used Komodo at http://www.activestate.com/products/komodo_ide/ and it's very good. ActiveState has also released a free Editor at http://www.activestate.com/products/komodo_edit/ that looks promising.

I'd encourage you though to do something simpler. If you're on a Mac go buy Textmate at http://macromates.com/ and get acquainted with the command line.

Emacs. Use CUA-mode and tabbar-mode if you aren't familiar with the Emacs keybindings. That's what I do.

I'm also fond of Wingware, but it's a commercial product. I found it wasn't quite enough of an improvement over Emacs to be worth paying for. Also, like many IDEs, it takes a while to bootup and requires a fairly large screen, both of which were annoying on my 1024x768 VMWare-inside-a-laptop instance.

The Wing IDE ( http://www.wingware.com/ ) is by far the most polished Python IDE, but will cost you.

Although, if you have an open source project apparently they may waive the licensing fees.

http://www.wingware.com/ http://www.wingware.com/store/prices

SPE IDE - Stani's Python Editor

http://pythonide.blogspot.com/

Yoy may want to watch http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8158216898634409900

I am a Vim + iPython user ... not power user mind you :P

IDEs don't matter much for beginners. I'd say: use whatever you can get working in the shortest time, and start coding. IDLE (shipped with Python) or text editor + interpreter are the two prime contenders for that.

I used IDLE when I was learning Python, but I like PyScripter now:

http://mmm-experts.com/Downloads.aspx?ProductId=4

I would say SCite editor, I grew up coding with it :-)