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Software development for researchers

Editor

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Choosing an editor

For this course I recommend:

  1. If you already have an editor you like and know - go with that. Maybe try turning on vim-shortcuts in that editor? Or setup some new plugins if you have not tried already?
  2. If you just want something that just works out of the box where you can install extensions that take care of LSP’s and everything: go with vscode or vscodium. However, be aware that many extensions might not be available for VSCodium due to Microsoft prohibiting external usage.
  3. If you want to setup something exactly like you want it, want to be as efficient as possible with editing, and you are ok with spending lots of time achieving that, use/learn nvim. One advantage of nvim is that it is a terminal editor which means: no fancy GUI to worry about, this can be used on any machine you SSH into. A similar bare-bones (and very fast) editor, but with a GUI instead, which can also be highly customized is SublimeText. Although SublimeText has a free (and pretty much infinite) trail, it is not free software.
  4. If you want all the bells and IDE-whistles with Python debuggers and environment handling: go with PyCharm or maybe spyder.
  5. If you are just looking for editing text with syntax highlighting - choose any alternative really if you don’t already have an editor.

If you still have decision anxiety - go with VsCode. It is a sensible choice as a first editor and you can explore more editors later when you are more experienced with programming and software development and when you know what to look for / what you want and need.

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