Using IPython for interactive work

IPython is great. Also, if you do any django work, you'll probably love shell_plus, which is an enhanced shell that uses IPython and automatically imports all the models of your installed_apps. shell_plus is a command extensions provided by django-extensions:

https://github.com/django-extensions/django-extensions

If you like working in a "code in the debugger" mode with ultimate omnipotent runtime power, there's also Smalltalk. It's a little like Python with everything designed around IPython as the default mode of operation.

I am going to check out shell_plus. It sounds badass.

The overview is here, which I found more helpful: http://ipython.github.com/ipython-doc/dev/overview.html

IPython has some really handy features for quick development, like adding ? after any object to get its docstring, and opening any line in the history in a text editor.

I also found it useful to add a newline after the prompt so you can copy/paste snippets without getting the indentation wrong.

Incidentally, you can also just use the %cpaste "magic" command to start a block for copy/pasting code snippets in (also have a look at %edit).