Spyder vs Leo Editor
When comparing Spyder vs Leo Editor, the Slant community recommends Spyder for most people. In the question“What are the best Python IDEs or editors?” Spyder is ranked 7th while Leo Editor is ranked 39th. The most important reason people chose Spyder is:
Released under the MIT license.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free and open-source
Released under the MIT license.
Pro Graph plotting support
Spyder can plot graphs and provide the list of all variables.
Pro Enables to write consistent code
Pylint integration enables to check the code for PEP8 style guide and detect errors.
Pro Powerful autocompletion
Spyder's autocomplete features are made possible by a library called rope which gives Spyder powerful autocompletion.
Pro Has cross platform support - Linux, Mac, and even Windows
Spyder (formerly Pydee) has support for all of the major operating platforms - Linux, Mac, and even Windows.
Pro Helps you to use documentation
Pro Intuitive interface
Pro Relatively lightweight
Pro Has support for Vim bindings via plugin support
Aside from being an open sourced, actively developed IDE, vim key-binding support is also available. If you remember Pydee - this is it, albeit with a new name.
Pro Good GitHub project
Pro Excellent variable explorer
Dynamic variable explorer with editor and visualizer
Pro Completely Python
Pro Outlines - better than folding
With outlines functions and classes can be arranged and grouped with their logical neighbours, even nested. Whole branch hierarchies can be expanded and collapsed in a single key stroke, or moved from this spot to that, as best fits the thinking or troubleshooting of the day. Outline trees make navigation across broadly different areas an effortless exercise. See your whole project in a single view, across any number of external files and modules.
Pro Internal command line
All Leo editor commands are available in a command bar, called a "mini-buffer", that feature tab-completion and command history. For example "Find all nodes containing phrase '...', clone them, and paste in a new tree" is a simple alt-x
, clone-find-flattened
(or cff
) away. As is toggle-split-direction
, expand/contract-log-pane
and execute-script
.
Pro Clones - when two or three or ... are better than one
Leo's unique concept of 'clones' means you can re-arrange sections of an external file to suit your way of thinking or tacking a specific issue without changing the organization of the source. This makes it a great tool for studying code from others, and perhaps contributing back to them without changing your or their preferred arrangement methods.
Cons
Con Not beautiful
The default theme is not beautiful. And there are not many themes.
Con The documentation is poor when it comes to debugging
Not a lot of information about debugging is available in the documentation.
Con Consumes a lot of memory
If you're working with large data, especially arrays, another IDE should be considered as spyder uses at least 200-300Mb of memory.
Con A different way of thinking means learning
There's no other code and text editor quite like Leo, so expect to put in some time learning. It can take some trying this and that before the "Aha!"s start to roll in. It's experiential.
