+Powerful features +Impressive extensions marketplace +Minimalist ‘zen mode’ The debugger shows the call stack as well as the state of local and global variables. It has a powerful debugger which allows single-stepping through the code or over-stepping through each high level function. IDLE lacks any project management facilities, but that’s no problem if your project spans only a handful of files. IDLE supports using spaces or tabs for indentation, and can automagically convert between the two – plus it can indent multiple lines at a time. Your code will be appropriately highlighted and automatically indented, with a configurable indent level. Moving on from here you can open a new window to start coding proper. You can play around with code snippets here, with the bonus that keywords and output will be nicely colored. Starting IDLE will open a Python shell, just as you get when starting Python from the terminal. It’s coded in Python and uses the lightweight tkinter toolkit to draw its GUI. IDLE (named after Monty Python's Eric Idle) is fairly minimal compared to some of the other offerings around, but it has everything you need and certainly won't get in your way.
It's easy to overlook IDLE, Python's very own bespoke Integrated Development Environment.
