I have never liked the user interfaces of either Eclipse or Pycharm, so it is hard to be impartial. Liclipse, for those unfamiliar with it, is an Eclispe based IDE, that is a successor to Pydev. Both are proprietary, but prices are reasonable. After trying them again I still do not like Eclipse or Liclipse, but I do see the appeal of Pycharm. Continue reading
Python IDEs part 3: Eric and Wing
Continuing looking at Python IDEs, I have been trying Eric and Wing IDE. Both primarily Python IDEs (although Eric also supports Ruby), both are very powerful, but one is free and open source, while the other is proprietary and expensive. Continue reading
Python IDEs part two: Ninja and Komodo
Continuing my review of a number of Python IDEs, I am starting with two IDEs I already know I like: Komodo and Ninja. As I said in the first post before I have used both Komodo Edit (Komodo IDE is Komodo Edit with extra features). Continue reading
Trying Python IDEs
I have been using Geany for a while, because it is lightweight and has a nice UI, and it will be my baseline for this comparison, but it lacks some features I would like to have. The most important is good auto-completion, but refactoring support would be nice and real time linting even nicer. So, I made myself a list of IDEs (and extensible editors) that met my criteria. Continue reading
Its not paradise, but lets not exaggerate
I can understand Ankie Renique’s frustration about people who think that living is the tropics and working as a remote freelance is idyllic, but her reaction is to pick on a number of minor issues, or those that say more about her than the country, rather than picking very real problems. Continue reading
Open sources licenses still not understood (by Hiscox, at least)
Insurance company Hiscox has posted a misleading article on “the advantages and risks of open source software” in its “small business knowledge centre”. It is not clear who the article is aimed at, the explanations of legal issues are unclear, and the discussion of security issues irrelevant. They could have saved themselves from looking foolish if they had asked some with some technical knowledge and familiarity with the licences to review the article. Continue reading
Fossil vs Git
I have used Fossil for version control for a few years, and I like it, but this recent comment on the fossil-users mailing list made me think about its limits:
we must agree Fossil [..] much easier and friendlier to use.
It is, and it is not. I do recommend it, and it does provide a a lot of functionality and it is easy to learn and use. Continue reading
Why you should not use WordPress
The appeal of WordPress is obvious: cheap and easy, and lots of “developers” know it. The biggest problem with WordPress is that something originally designed as a blog platform, has evolved general CMS features, and is widely used a development platform. The problems are that it has security issues, and is neither flexible nor productive when used a a development platform and cheap developers are not good developers. Continue reading
The philistines are running the asylum
This post was sparked off by a comment a teacher made about the British government’s education policy, but the point I want to make is that this is the result of a globally accepted change in values. There is a link between education policy, how prisoners are treated, arts policy and more. Continue reading
Tablets: anti-consumer and anti-innovation
Tablet computers (and smart phones) are bad. They are bad for consumers and kill innovation. They move power from the owner of the device to its manufacturer, and denying the use of a cheap base for research and development, the very base that made the tablets possible in the first place, and, if PCs follow suit, innovation will become much harder. They deny consumers choice, are sometimes impossible to update (a security nightmare) and are inflexible. Continue reading