5d ago

FOSS IDEs recommendations?

I'm getting back into coding and I'm going to start with python but I wanted to see what are some good IDEs to write the code. Thanks in advance.

75 comments

Codium. It's VSCode without the proprietary stuff
- Beat me to it mate.
  Here is the link. https://vscodium.com/
- Also Eclipse Theia, it has the same interface and functionality and it is compatible with most VSCode extensions (probably over 98% of them?).
- I find codium is pretty great overall. It's become my daily driver now.

My husband, who mostly codes in assembly these days (he's mostly retired so his hobby is old atari, amstrad, and spectrum computers), went from VSCode, to Sublime, to now Kate. He prefers to use 100% open source apps, without strings attached. VSCode is nice, but it has lots of weird stuff in it that aren't necessarily up to the spirit of open source. So Kate works perfectly for him, although VSCodium would do well as well (it's just that Kate has better syntax highlighters for his weird assembly). Also VSCode/ium is using about 250 MB of RAM, while Kate about 45 (and Sublime only about 32).
- (he’s mostly retired so his hobby is old atari, amstrad, and spectrum computers)
  Your husband is an absolute legend.
- without strings attached
  How does he read??

Vim/neovim
- I'd suggest going with LazyVIM / SpaceVIM as a starting point, though, as configuring vim from blank state is an art itself and requires quite some time and dedication.
  
  starting off with nothing but vim/nvim really isn't bad
  
  configuring vim from blank state is an art itself and requires quite some time and dedication.
  Not really sure where you got this from. It's quite simple to me. The default vim config works completely fine for me if I'm eg in a VM and I don't want to copy all my vimrc and plugins over, if it's a machine I'll be using more long-term then it's quite quick to configure a few settings to be how I prefer them to be. Main changes I make to a default config is enabling line numbers (idk anyone who wouldn't want line numbers tbh) and setting them to be relative, set scrolloff=9999, use 4 spaces for indent, enable line and column highlighting, set a theme, and a couple odd scripts, but again the default is perfectly usable and the tweaks in my vimrc are just to my personal taste.
  
  +1 for LazyVim

I use Helix. It's kinda like a preconfigured Neovim. I really like it, my only complaint is that it (currently) doesn't have a filetree
- Seconded. I'm coming from Emacs (+evil), so I'm still missing a few features (proper git integration a-la magit, collaborative editing a-la crdt.el, remote editing a-la tramp). However what is already there works way better/faster/more consistent than any other editor IMHO, and I've tried neovim with plugins too. I particularly enjoy the ability to traverse the AST rather than text (Alt+l/p/o/i by default, but I have it remapped to Alt+h/j/k/l). Really looking forward to https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/8675, I'll probably write a couple plugins if this ever lands.
  
  You can already do so incredibly much by hooking up a few extra LSPs and keybinds (calling external scripts/programs)!
  What I'm personally still missing though:
  Code Folding
  More refined subprocess handling, i.e. term-buffer switching or floating term (when excuting gitui via keybind for example)
  Emacs Org-Mode like context aware styling, for i.e. Bold or Italic text hints from LSP
  Font changes (restricted through terminal)
  Different Font/Line sizes for i.e. headings (restricted through terminal)
  Inline images (sixel!)
  
  Dedicated optional client, a-la Neovide with cursor animations (helps orientation with jumps etc.), and to alleviate the previous terminal restrictions
- I use Yazi and its amazing. Here's their docs on how to set it up as a file picker in helix.
  https://yazi-rs.github.io/docs/tips/#helix-with-zellij
  
  I wanted to try to use this with yazi, to get the file picker without having to rely on zellij (or any other terminal multiplexer)...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9_z_gynvmM
- Same here
- I came to the conclusion that a fuzzy finder (SPC-f) + goto definition (g-d)/implementation (g-i) is better than a filetree in all my usecases...

I really like Kate as an advanced editor with syntax highlighting, auto-completion, plugin support. I would then use the Terminal pane at the bottom to run my code during development.
However, if you want a full IDE with included dependency management, test runner, and debugger it's probably not enough.
One of my professors said you don't need an IDE, the Linux system already is a development environment. Not sure that I fully agree with that, especially thinking of things like Android Studio that include the virtual machine smartphone, but it's still an approach thing that is worth trying out.
- Nobody needs an IDE. After all, you can just open a blank file and get straight to work. I could also just use Linux without a DE. Who needs all those graphics, amirite? I could also use a can with some string instead of a phone—or better yet, just shout really loud!
  (/j)
  
  use Linux without a DE. [...] (/j)
  ... actually (tip fedora hat) not but seriously actually most of what we NEED is fine that way. It sounds ludicrous then you try Sxmo on a phone and you can't help but GENUINELY wonder "Damn... did I get scammed all those years?"
- One of my professors said you don’t need an IDE, the Linux system already is a development environment.
  Considering "the Linux system" is literally anything you throw on top of the kernel called Linux, it can be a development environment or anything you want it to be. But I think part of the appeal of an IDE is how all the parts integrate (the "I" in "IDE") so a bunch of packages thrown together might not provide the same cohesive feeling.
  
  Considering “the Linux system” is literally anything you throw on top of the kernel called Linux, it can be a development environment or anything you want it to be.
  I'd just like to interject for a moment...
  
  Considering “the Linux system” is literally anything you throw on top of the kernel called Linux, it can be a development environment or anything you want it to be.
  Yeah I thought about the same thing when posting, if anything it would have to be the the combination of tools available on Linux. Like GNU binutils, GCC, GNU emacs, GDB, Git. But that's how I remember him saying it. Either my memory is wrong, or he just wasn't that precise in his language.
  But I think part of the appeal of an IDE is how all the parts integrate (the “I” in “IDE”) so a bunch of packages thrown together might not provide the same cohesive feeling.
  I agree, it may not be what you want if you're looking for an IDE.
  But, like me back then, if you're new to the Linux ecosystem, it's good to hear at least once that you don't strictly need to look for an IDE. And that you can instead use disparate CLI tools together, to make for an experience that some people end up preferring.

I use PyCharm for work but it's not FOSS or beginner-friendly. PyCharm does have a free community edition which is awesome if you're mostly into FOSS for the $0 aspect.
https://thonny.org/ - for the first few days of learning and easy setup
https://www.spyder-ide.org/ - especially good for data science
https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/ - full-featured general purpose IDE
Codium is fine and technically FOSS although it's association with Microsoft taints it for anyone who still hates MS from the bad old days. Also it's an Electron app.
- PyCharm community is FOSS
- Codium is fine and technically FOSS although it’s association with Microsoft taints it for anyone who still hates MS from the bad old days.
  "New" Microsoft isn't really any better, and although Codium itself is perfectly fine (Electron notwithstanding) many of Microsoft's extensions only work with/are only licensed for the official VSCode build and include proprietary parts.
- I got started with Spyder when learning python in biochemistry

with the rise of LSP, i feel that ides have become less necessary. get an editor that you like, add an LSP client if there's not one built-in, then install the server for your language.

vim/nvim is really great

Emacs and geany

Honestly, just try a few of the big ones and see what you like, I feel like with IDEs it's all about personal preferences and rarely about actual amount of features.
Good ones to start with can be PyCharm and vscodium, but try a few, that's the best option.
- Ya ime it's mostly about what people are comfortable with. People who care about all the features :tm: go to emacs, people who want to use an instrument stick with vim, and old people use nano

Geany https://www.geany.org/
- Yeah, geany is a simple and effective IDE. I chose to use vim with syntax highlighting.

Neovim! Here is a good video to get started TJ DeVries. If you just want to give it a shot there are a lot of preconfigured options like lunar vim or NVchad.
- LunarVim is dead I think. In the issues section the (main?) dev says they recommend switching to something else and that they have gone over to Astronvim.

For Python definitely PyCharm.
- Huh, the community edition is Apache 2 licensed. I had assumed it was proprietary freeware.
  
  That's news to me.

Zed
- Zed is full of AI rubbish, though, which is a shame as I was looking for a code editor built with Rust.
  
  You can check out Lapce, which is written in Rust: https://github.com/lapce/lapce
  
  Not really, all the AI stuff is off by default and doesn't really nag you all too much...
  
  Rust doesn’t buy you anything interesting in this space.
  
  It's not too hard to disable all of it
  undefined
  
  { // Disable Telemetry "telemetry": { "metrics": false, "diagnostics": false }, // Disable Assistant: "assistant": { "enabled": false, "button": false, "version": "2" }, // Disable Copilot: "features": { "inline_completion_provider": "none" }, // Disable Collaboration Features: "collaboration_panel": { "button": false }, "chat_panel": { "button": false }, "notification_panel": { "button": false } }
- As long as it has an integration for your language/framework of choice it’s the best imo
  
  Will try, thanks.

I'm a big fan of vim/neovim with nerdtree and airline added in.
I've also been tryingourt Zed recently, it natively supports vim keybindings, so my workflow hasn't changed, but its lightning fast (programmed in rust) compared to vs-codium (an electron app)

Because people ask for an IDE, rather than an editor, I will say :
Vim + terminal(s) + containerization (e.g. Docker CLI, Python venv) + live reloading (e.g. nodemon or inotify or in the browser using e.g. server side events) + repository management (e.g. git in CLI to juggle between branches, push/pull local/remotely)
IMHO this is very VERY light (0 wait even on a RPi Zero) and yet very flexible.
Also most of that can be "saved" via e.g screen the CLI tool, allowing to have named windows in a terminal and a lot more than to e.g. screen -raAD, locally or remotely.

I'm slowly learning Emacs, I'd say I like it but it's a lot of config work and I wouldn't recommend it to somebody who hasn't programmed before.
- I agree. I learned and used emacs and org mode for several years. With age, I now want simpler tools that do not need extensive configuration. Using mainly Spyder and VS Code for python coding

I use Vim ;)
Python itself provides IDLE, which is good enough for beginners. https://thonny.org/ is another good one for beginners.
As mentioned by others, Jetbrains is good for many languages. https://www.kdevelop.org/ is another option.

@SpiceDealer I use Emacs as an IDE for Python.

Netbeans for java was good to me as a student.

It pains me to admit this but VSCodium has become my de facto standard
https://vscodium.com/
- Don't be ashamed, I think a lot here secretly like it, it's just very extensible because so many use it in the form of VSCode and it's just great for what it is, despite being Microsoft's for all intents and purposes
- Agree. Codium goes brrrr, honestly.

Eclipse Theia if you already know VSCode.
It copied the interface and functionality and is compatible with most VSCode extensions. Available as an AppImage on Linux.

For python PyCharm is unbeatable.

75 comments