Python IDE built into Visual Studio 2008?

Question

Hi I develop in Visual Studio 2008 a lot and would like to find an addin like vsphp which enables intellisense and debugging in Visual Studio. Is IronStudio what I am looking for? As far as I understand IronStudio is a Plugin for .NET.

If there is no Plugin for Visual Studio 2008 whats a great IDE for a python newbee who loves Visual Studio (hate netbeans and eclipse sorry just don't feel the love)

Also if IronPython Studio is an IDE do I want the Isolated or Integrated Version? I don't seem to understand the name.

I installed integrated and got this: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/5910/Jing/2009-02-11_1750.png :( no console like here: http://www.codeplex.com/IronPythonStudio

Answer 1

Have a look at PyScripter, I haven't tried it extensively but heard good things about it.

It's not an addon to Visual Studio, it's an independent IDE.

Answer 2

I had a similar dilemma when I first started writing in Python. I couldn't find any plugins for VS so I tried a few alternatives:

• IDLE - comes packaged with Python and works but felt very cludgy to me
• Wingware Python IDE - not free, but seemed to have pretty good debugging capabilities
• e-texteditor - has nice syntax highlighting but running Python script from it frequently causes issues.
• Eclipse with PyDev - is what I now use - syntax highlighting, auto-completion, debugging capabilities etc. etc.

There's a couple of reviews of options that might be of use to you:

• Jonathan Ellis's Programming Blog
• Wikipedia

Personally, I'd recommend Eclipse + PyDev :-)

[Edit] Iron Python looks pretty cool - might have to check that one out!

[Update 25/04/2013] I just use PyCharm these days. Absolutely fantastic IDE and it even understands DJango