I am not a python developer but occasionally I find a need to do something in Python. Over the years I tried Python and Python plus Eclipse. About a year ago I tried Pythonxy and liked it. I initially downloaded the package since I wanted to do some statistical analysis using python and this was an easy way to get all of the dependencies. Here are some of features I like and dislike.
Likes
- Naturally it includes Python and a wide assortment of packages including NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, and IPython. It is kind of a no brainer to set up a Python environment with a full complement of libraries.
- It includes a nice full featured python IDE, Spyder. If you do not like Spyder you can always go back to Scite and IDLE.
- It includes several packages I wanted to play with Eclipse, Qt, wxPython, and MinGW although Eclipse is now an extra package.
Dislikes
- It is a large download, 477 MB.
- I converted my statistical analysis to R so I have little use for the scientific libraries.
- In some cases you will be working with older packages, such as IPython(0.10.2) and MinGW(4.5) and upgrading these packages breaks other things. In the case of MinGW I installed the newest Msys/MinGW version over the old installed version(MinGW32-xy) and everything seems to be working. However, upgrading IPython to the latest version breaks the enhanced command consoles for IPython.
- Occasionally I have problems installing Pythonxy at work. Mcafee flags the log2del.exe as a trojan while Security Essentials at home does not. This is annoying since several people have reported Mcafee’s report as a false positive.