Article Outline
If you are new to <a href="https://python.org">Python</a> programming, you may wonder where to start and how to run Python code. In general there are two ways:
- in the terminal
- in an IDE
For small projects, you could use the terminal. But for large projects, an IDE saves you a lot of time opening closing files, and programming.
You can do your programming work in a Python IDE. This is a development environment that tries to make programming easier. While you can run Python <a href="https://pythonbasics.org/execute-python-scripts/">in a console</a>, I recommend to use an IDE for larger projects.
Often times it has <a href="https://pythonbasics.org/getting-started/#PythonIDE">many features</a>, you can run your program with a single key press, open multiple files and tabs at once, have searching through all files and many other features available, but this depends on the IDE.
Some popular IDEs
Some popular IDEs these days are <a href="https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/">PyCharm</a> and <a href="https://code.visualstudio.com/">Microsoft Visual Studio Code</a>. These are popular because of their many available features and free of price.
<img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fossmint.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F02%2Fvisual-studio-code.png&f=1&nofb=1">
A screenshot of Visual Studio Code. Besides Python it supports many other programming languages. This is not the case for all IDEs.
You could try <a href="https://www.spyder-ide.org/">Spyder IDE</a> or <a href="https://www.wingware.com/">Wingware IDE</a>, which are not as popular as the ones above but are good IDEs.
<img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fok97465.github.io%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fspyder-ide%2FDark_theme.png&f=1&nofb=1" alt="spyder ide">
If you want to code on your mobile or tablet (perhaps because of long commute), you can use <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pythonista-3/id1085978097">Pythonista IDE</a> or <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.qpython.qpy">QPython</a>
But there are many more, some use older editors like <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">Emacs</a> or <a href="https://www.vim.org/">VIM</a> as IDE. It depends on your personal preferences or sometimes on your employers preferences.
Related links:
- <a href="https://pythonprogramminglanguage.com/python-ide/">List of Python IDEs</a>
- <a href="https://pythonbasics.org/">Learn Python</a>