Figuring Out Your IDE Workflow

Folks may be wondering why we introduced two different Python IDEs before actually starting to work in Python- that’s a fair question!

Much of our Python instructional content will be made available as Jupyter Notebooks that you can run in Google Colab. The application question templates are Jupyter Notebooks that you’ll submit using Google Colab. So it’s important for you to be familiar and comfortable with that IDE.

But, there’s some research that suggests notebooks can be challenging for beginning programmers- they can make it hard to identify errors in your programs and can inhibit the type of iterative prototyping needed to build programming skills.

Additionally, Python and R/RStudio are the only programming languages that have a notebook IDE option. Other languages like Java/JavaScript and C/C++/C# use console-based editors. So it’s important that you’re familiar with console-based editors. Additionally, some of our collaborative work in Python will use console-based editors.

Prof. Walden’s recommendation is for folks to use Spyder as you work through Python chapters and write out programs for the application questions. Once you have a working program for a question, copy/paste it into the appropriate cell in your copy of the Google Colab Jupyter Notebook template.

If as we continue to work in Python, you’re becoming increasingly frustrated with Spyder, let’s talk! I’m open to folks’ switching to working in Jupyter Notebooks/Google Colab. I just ask that we try Spyder first.