Managed to get python mode set up in Xemacs after some initial teething problems. Found the following links useful:
How to add the python mode to Xemacs
Where to get python-mode.el
Definitely in Python mode because I can execute a “Hello World” python script from within Xemacs but I don’t see any syntax highlighting yet. Any ideas?
Edit: Figured out the problem. I could get “syntax highlighting” to work from menu options. So figured it was just a setting in my init.el.
Added the line to my init.el and highlighting now works.
(require ‘font-lock)
Might play around with the highlighting later but this is good for now.
Should I use a full-fledged IDE like Eclipse with the PyDev plugin? Or should I just go with emacs (which I used to be familiar with)?
Quite confused by the number of editors and IDEs listed in python’s FAQ.
Already wondering whether I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. Instead of opening up too many new fronts, I’ve decided to go with Xemacs (I’m on a Windows machine. Before you ask, I am regretting it already).
Will check out PyScripter and Notepad++ too if I cannot get python’s plugins to work with Xemacs or if I realize how much easier those two options will be.
I am probably most comfortable programming in C, C++ and Java (in that order). However, given the amount of time that has elapsed since I last programmed seriously, I suspect that I’ll face the initial learning curve with any programming language (probably steeper if I decided to program in Lisp).
A friend and colleague of mine who I respect a lot, used to swear by python for rapid prototyping. My own exposure to python has been very limited (completing code that someone else had started on but had not finished about 8 yrs ago). At the time, I found it a little painful but that probably was just the initial learning curve that everyone experiences.
Without agonizing over the decision much longer, I’m going to choose python given that I want to be able to churn out working code very fast. If I find that I made a bad choice, I will revisit this decision.
Edit: Couldn’t decide between python version 2 vs. 3. Read the following article and decided to go with version 2.7 for now.
