Comments on: Python / Emacs setup

By: Emacs setup for Python development (tutorial for beginners)

Emacs setup for Python development (tutorial for beginners) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:05:59 +0000

[...] had a little help from Jessica Hamrick and John D. Cook so here is the list of the packages to install or [...]

By: Vim Toutenhoofd

Vim Toutenhoofd — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:07:24 +0000

Within a month or two I hope to take up programming again, after not having done that for many years. I intend to write Python, using Emacs. I’m entering this comment here so I can then also check the box labeled “Notify me of followup comments …”

By: Ronert Obst

Ronert Obst — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:34:02 +0000

elpy bundles all these modes nicely. It is available on Melpa.

By: Mark Hepburn

Mark Hepburn — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 02:58:54 +0000

I didn’t know fgallina’s work was already shipping; that’s great news. It’s under active development independently though, so you may still wish to look into it.

By: John

John — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:33:05 +0000

David: Thanks for clarifying the python-mode history. Given your experience and Mark’s with rope, I think I’ll pass. When I read “I spent a whole weekend trying,” that was enough for me.

This article from Mastering Emacs describes rope as “disappointing, slow, crash-prone, obtuse and impossible to extend. ” But the article speaks highly of Jedi.

By: David Röthlisberger

David Röthlisberger — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:20:29 +0000

“python-mode” is ambiguous:
* Emacs has always† shipped the file “python.el” which implements a major mode called “python-mode”.
* Python folk released their own file, not shipped with Emacs, called “python-mode.el”. Emacs couldn’t ship it due to copyright reasons.
* Fabián Ezequiel Gallina wrote, from scratch, a version of python.el that merged the best‡ features of python.el and python-mode.el. This is the version shipping with Emacs since 24.1.

In conclusion: Use the python-mode shipped with Emacs. If you’re using an Emacs older than 24.1, upgrade!

Setting up rope with Emacs is so complicated I wouldn’t bother. I spent a whole weekend trying and failed. You need rope (a python refactoring library), pymacs (a system that allows people to write Emacs extensions in python, though I may be misrepresenting/misunderstanding it here), ropemode, and ropemacs. Some of these include both python and elisp components, but lack decent packages, so forget about installing using your existing system, python, or Emacs package managers (the elisp component installed with the Emacs package manager will be out of sync with the python component installed from PyPI). You’ll have to build them from source.

Jedi looks promising, and much simpler. But I haven’t tried it yet.

† Since 2005
‡ I don’t know the details

By: Mark Hepburn

Mark Hepburn — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 04:32:13 +0000

@Soli
Right, of course. I only played with rope briefly; from memory I had issues getting to work consistently and it was slow (actually, I think it was trying to index my entire python library, and maybe even hitting errors or infinite loops… it was quite a while ago). Jedi does look very promising for what I’d mainly want it for though. I should probably give both a shot again.

By: John

John — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 23:40:13 +0000

Greg: I don’t know whether I’d use Emacs if all I did was edit Python. There are some good Python IDEs. But the main thing I like about Emacs is using it for multiple tasks.

At one point I was using a different application for editing each language: one for HTML, one for C++, one for Python, etc. and I wasn’t very good at using any of them. I picked Emacs back up to have one editor for everything and so that hopefully I could learn to use it well. For me, the occasional difficulties with Emacs are outweighed by the benefits.

Everyone: Thanks for the suggestions.

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 23:18:16 +0000

I am a huge fan of vimpulse, which gives emacs vim-like key bindings, including visual mode. Having used standard emacs for 6-8 years before going with viper/vimpulse, my experience is that vi key bindings are richer and more concise than the stock emacs bindings, although they are probably harder to learn.

Using VIM itself was a non-starter for a number of reasons, mainly lack of syntactic analysis (i.e. auto indent) and a good extension language.

I’ve also found that I prefer the command/insert mode stuff versus having to perpetually keep my little finger on the control key. Even after mapping it to caps lock, which I would highly recommend.

I haven’t invested too much in Python+emacs beyond stuff that would apply equally to Python+C++. Jedi looks very interesting though. I might give that a whirl sometime.

I have my own snippet tool: https://github.com/kungfucraig/devtools

By: Fred

Fred — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 23:05:22 +0000

python-mode
You cannot do it without this one.

rainbow-mode, rainbow-delimiters-mode
python-mode has already some colors for keywords, strings, etc, etc. I don’t really like rainbow mode because there too many colors on the screen.

linum-on
I have this one by default set to off but some time I switch it to on if I need line numbers.

rope
Is one is convenient when you do code refactoring. In my environment it is off by default and I turn it on when needed.

electric-pair – show-paren
I use both of them. I am so used to both of them that I couldn’t do without them.

auto-complete – Jedi
I am not a fan of pulldown menus constantly flashing on my screen. I found that distracting.

yassnippets
This one is great. I have extended the macros for python and I use it a lot.

By: Soli

Soli — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:20:26 +0000

@Mark
no, rope provides (advanced) refactoring, when jedi is “limited” to autocompletion and documentation. However (I’m a vim user, but it shouldn’t matter here) since I started using jedi, I find myself using rope less and less…

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:07:00 +0000

ein (emacs client for ipython notebook) looks good if you can get it to work. It didn’t work when I tried a few months ago but I think the underlying bug (in the elisp websocket library) is fixed now.

By: Mark Hepburn

Mark Hepburn — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:14:27 +0000

Doesn’t jedi replace rope?

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 19:41:15 +0000

The suggestions kind of persuades me not to use Emacs…