What are the current relationships between Eclipse, Aptana and PyDev?

Question

I'm still searching for the ideal development setup for Django, and am having a bit of difficulty sorting out where things currently stand.

I am hoping for something suited for server- as well as client-side development, with support for template-editing and jQuery.

At present I'm using only PyDev in Eclipse and have the following questions:

• Do I scrap the Eclipse installation and start fresh with Aptana Studio? if so,

  -what else would I need before and/or after to achieve the environment I described above?

• Is everything going to be supported in the future?

• Am I overlooking a better solution that doesn't even involve any of these tools I've mentioned?

I'm no longer interested in either Java or RoR, if this makes any difference.

Answer 1

Aptana Studio (v3) is the following:

• HTML, CSS, JS editors
• PHP (PDT derivative)
• RadRails
• PyDev
• Eclipse 3.6.2 RCP base

Aptana is not Eclipse rebranded. Aptana Studio is approximately the same as these toolchains:

• Eclipse + Web Tools + PDT + PyDev + ? for rails
• WebStorm + PyCharm + RubyMine + PhpStorm (though, to be fair, RubyMine has more features than RadRails ATM. I don't have an active comparison for PyCharm and PhpStorm)

What to use is dependent on what you need. To get Python editing, JS support and template support, Aptana Studio should be fine. Aptana Studio is built on top of Eclipse, so regular Eclipse plugins work, but you can just as easily put Aptana as a plugin into a straight Eclipse version (i.e. 3.7, if you prefer). That would allow you to jsut uninstall PyDev and add Aptana.

If you don't install Aptana, Django templates won't work, as they need HTML and CSS editor support. You will want an editor that supports jQuery. I'm not sure if Wing IDE or PyCharm include JS support--you might need to purchase WebStorm. Wing IDE looks nice, but it is rather expensive, and you have to pay for the pro version to get many of the most useful features, like integrated source control.

Yes, development and support will continue. Aptana Studio was just purchased by Appcelerator to integrate into Titanium Studio (a mobile development IDE built on top of Aptana Studio).