Comment by drawkbox | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drawkbox | Hacker News Reader

I primarily use Sublime, TextMate or Komodo on Mac for python dev but would love to also use VS. I do run windows and do most dev on that under VS. Maybe one day VS will come to Mac, I know that doesn't follow the platform mission but would get some good traction for Visual Studio going forward and a little fire under Xcode for C/C++ dev on Mac.

At this point both XCode and VS are pretty equal but XCode I also like and have no problem with. Both are unique to the OS though. Both are also extremely bloated but needed for C/C++ dev. Eclipse is also a bit cludgy. That python to native screenshot on the site looks intruiging.

I do use MonoDevelop on Mac for Unity dev and it does support debugging but would love to use VS on Mac one day.

All in all when I do python dev I like less in my IDE at times, just a good autocomplete/intellisense and I usually despise integrated source control into IDEs preferring to do it with outside tools such as terminal/cmd, sourcetree or tortoises. SCM integration in IDEs always seems to kill performance and gets out of sync, especially in the latest MonoDevelop (startup indexing kills the usefulness - http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/356129/monodevelop-perf...).

Try PyCharm. It works on Mac and Windows and is miles ahead of XCode for Python.

Haven't tried it yet, might give it a try. The debugging looks cool and even Guido seems to think it has some benefits: https://profiles.google.com/115212051037621986145/buzz/CGh9M... - note he mentions painful SCM integration, as usual in IDEs that just doesn't work well. SCM support I usually turn off as it adds iteration lag typically. Prefer the scm tools directly almost always.

I keep SourceTree, by the same company, running while I'm working in PyCharm, and it picks up all the changes nicely. It has been my crutch in becoming competent using Git.

PyCharm is built by JetBrains, and SourceTree by Atlassian. Both great products, though.

Exactly what I do. I've just started using IntelliJ change sets which are really useful.

For what it's worth I'll give a second vote to PyCharm. Great out-of-the-box go to definition, find all references and refactoring support.

One thing that drives me nuts in Xcode as opposed to VS is that the autocomplete only completes when you hit tab. I want it to compete when I hit a period or a space too like it does in VS! Considering you find them both basically equal, have you found a workaround for this or is it just not frustrating to you?

Unfortunately no, just have to deal. Some use "CTRL + SPACE" or ESC or "CTRL + ," but it still doesn't do it very smart. VS autocomplete is still smarter and quicker it seems. I do like the greying auto complete of XCode as you type as sometimes the drop down gets in the way.

Got ya. BTW - in Visual Studio if you hold down control while the autocomplete is open, it goes translucent so you can see your code behind it!

Awesomeness

VS 2013 now comes with way more editing options than Xcode. It always drive me nut that I couldn't make IDE automatically insert space around function parameters, because it is not a popular style.

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