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PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   3491 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 21, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Does anybody like programming?

I have been hired as a sole and lead Python developer in a company. But my Python experience is mostly on Numpy, if anybody has some tips? It would be very appreciated!

Partly a response, partly hijacking this to ask a question of my own to everyone else: what are you using as a editor/compiler?

I programmed exclusively in Java for years, but my new boss wanted programs in Python so I've been doing that this past year. Using Eclipse, which is wonderful as an editor, since it lets me organize everything and highlights typos that I make and stuff.

Aside a whole lot of friction involving different conventions and abilities, I was annoyed that all of the Python editors people recommended seemed way less functional until I discovered that I can program Python in Eclipse if I do the right stuff. So I've been doing that.

I'm not sure what the general consensus is, because I'm mostly self-taught and program on my own, making mathematical models for research purposes that nobody else has to use or collaborate with, so I've probably got all sorts of weird habits that would make more sophisticated programmers cringe. So I can't tell how much of this is objective and how much is just me being used to Eclipse for so many years and having little experience with anything else. But I tentatively recommend looking into PyDev for Eclipse, because in my opinion it's nice.

Sublime Text is top tier. VSCode is good but a memory hog, same for the Jetbrains suite. Nano is fine for making quick edits in a terminal. Vim pales in comparison to the aforementioned GUI editors for editing large files (or large amounts of files), and it's too obtuse compared to nano for making quick edits. I don't think it has a good use case.

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