This is very basic - watched the 1st two lectures, doin well, but, what Code Editor ought I use. Is IDLE a code editor/ does it come on Mac? Can I just use terminal?/ Please, instructions for an idiot would be best. Thanks.

Question

This is very basic - watched the 1st two lectures, doin well, but, what Code Editor ought I use.  Is IDLE a code editor/ does it come on Mac?  Can I just use terminal?/ Please, instructions for an idiot would be best.  Thanks.

anonymous · Answer

you can use terminal on a mac

open terminal
type in python and it should work =)

maitre_kaio · Answer

ndani is right, you can use any text-editor, and run the code on the command line.
But if you want to be as close to the course as possible, you can use IDLE. I think it comes with Python (at least for Linux, I don't know for OSX).
Moreover, IDLE has a debugging tool which may (or not) help you. But it has also strange behaviors sometimes and  when it happens you have to restart it.

anonymous · Answer

IDLE is included with Python for Mac if you download the installer from python.org. If you use IDLE on the Mac, your coding environment will 100% match the professors in the video lectures.

anonymous · Answer

I like to use IDLE as a terminal to test code, then keep my "confirmed" code in a text editor like VIM.  I'm also a big fan of MacVIM, but the learning curve is a bit greater than just using IDLE.  You could substitute any text editor.  Another good one is TextWrangler, although it doesn't support syntax highlighting, which is very handy.