When comparing Kakoune vs Eric Python IDE, the Slant community recommends Eric Python IDE for most people. In the question“What are the best Python IDEs or editors?” Eric Python IDE is ranked 14th while Kakoune is ranked 28th. The most important reason people chose Eric Python IDE is:
Eric has a python debugger built-in.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Will be familiar to vim users
Kakoune first started as a rewrite from scratch of vim, but then ended up being another text editor altogether. So it's inspired in a lot of ways from vim.
Pro More modern than vim
Pro Good UNIX citizen
It follows the UNIX philosophy by doing one thing well (text editing) and interfaces nicely with other CLI tools.
Pro Text selection mechanism
Kakoune works on selections, which are oriented, inclusive range of characters, selections have an anchor and a cursor character. Most commands move both of them, except when extending selection where the anchor character stays fixed and the cursor one moves around.
Pro Very expressive
Kakoune provides a very expressive set of commands, including various objects selection (paragraph, blocks, words), alignment support, conditional selection filtering...
This set of command is expressive enough to implement all the provided auto indentation logic.
Pro Actively developed and supported
Pro Self-documenting
A helper pops up when typing commands.
Pro Simpler and more consistent than Vim
Some keys select, other keys operate on the selections. Shift
is used to extend the selection, alt
is used for alternative behavior, e.g. reverse the search direction. No inconsistencies like Y
which means yy
and not y$
in Vim.
Pro Integrated python debugger
Eric has a python debugger built-in.
Pro Good project management
Pro Integration with version control software
Integrates with various VCS.
Pro Integrated class browser
With Eric you can easily browse all classes in your current Python project and display the methods for a given class.
Cons
Con Small community
Con No real Windows support
Will compile under CygWin.
Con Default bindings do not play nice with OS X (Alt+???)
Con Written in C++
Con Auto completion is not very good
The auto completion is not top-notch compared to other IDEs and text editors. In fact, many people recommend installing a third-party plugin to improve the auto completion found in Eric.
Con Complex interface
Eric has a very complex UI. It overwhelms you with sections and windows and doesn't let you focus on code. Every tool is displayed on the top bars (there are 3) with no logical grouping or structure whatsoever.