PyCharm for Beginners
Before we delve into the intricacies of what makes Python… We should arm ourselves with an Integrated Development Environment, IDE. An IDE for Python helps all the Python coders develop syntactically correct, and clean code. In addition, it affords the luxury of tracking versions, and readily providing accessible categories of code for repeated use.
This session will be mainly focused
on PyCharm as it has been the best utilized IDE for the most used general-purpose
programming languages of today which is Python.
What is an IDE?
IDE is the short for an integrated development environment. Specifically, a software environment used to write other programs using tools like an editor or compiler. An IDE can prove to be an extremely useful tool but coding using various languages for multiple reasons and requirements, it allow the coder to organize their code and provide efficiency in their process, in short, it makes your life so much easier and I'm sure you guys will agree at the end of this document.
Why use an IDE?
While it is not necessary to use an IDE to write a program, but the added features with the IDE provides are useful. First, we have code insight. Code Insight is one of the most helpful tools that an IDE can provide. It provides the ability to interpret what is being typed out by the user, so the program can change categorize color to represent different classes, functions, and variables. Some of the more common features are:
- An Interactive interface that helps the programmers by
detecting syntactic or semantic errors while developing. Contrary to non-IDE
where errors are found during the build. This eventually reduces the debugging
time.
- Reduces complexity related to the configuration of the
environment.
- Inbuilt version controlling mechanism.
- IDEs provide the provision of Visual programming that allows
programmers to create flow-charts, block diagrams etc.
Some of you may be familiar with
Microsoft Visual Studio. In MVS, they
have a similar function called intellisense that predicts what you are typing
out and finish the line for you. Much
like other IDE’s offer a similar tool called something proprietary to that program. Microsoft calls it as intellisense but
depending on the IDE it might be called something else.
When the code cannot handle the specific error and it crashes, debugging provides you with the ability to run through the entire program stopping the code at a specific point to check values of the variables, functions, or the code itself are running as intended.
Finally, a few more tools at the IDEs
offered can be resource management and a compiler. When
writing a new program there are usually many different files that have been
referenced in a specific path locations, so it makes it very important for these
files are in the correct location and are accessible to all of the dependencies. Using an IDE makes it easier to see a visual
representation of the location of these items. In addition, this organized coding, makes it
more understandable for the user as well.
Remember, the very coder that may have to review the code years later, maybe
you. Hence, the more organized and
properly annotated your code is, the better you must understand it is goals,
functions, and outputs.
No one will ever argue that increased
efficiency produces not only faster coding, but with less effort.
Introduction to Python
Python is an open
source, interpreted, general-purpose programming language. It uses the concepts
of object-oriented programming that help programmers develop large applications
by splitting it into smaller building blocks. It was first developed by Guido
van Rossum in 1990. One of the primary reasons Python became famous is due to
the availability of numerous modules (a.k.a. standard library) that are
publicly available for commercial use. Also, learning python is relatively
easier than other programming languages due to its lesser complexity in
syntaxes and semantics. Nowadays, popular uses of python are in Data Science,
Machine Learning, Web Development, etc. Guess What! The
world’s first Black Hole image was also developed using Python – it is that
powerful.
Python is a language that has
thousands of libraries and modules to work with. Many have found that Python is fun to work
with when compared to all the other languages out there. It is very beginner friendly which is
extremely important, and the syntax is quite simple to figure out as well. As a beginner, these features are very vital. Not to mention, best of all no semicolons.
In short, who would not just love
Python with all its libraries being open source.
Why Should a Coder Learn Python?
computations using NumPY SymPy, and
even designing your own GUI using Pygame and PANDA3D.
Introduction to PyCharm
As a result, look at the vast
selection of IDEs as a preference, not too far from a favorite flavor of ice
cream. With picking a favorite ice cream
flavor, you really must try it first, and only then will you realize if this is
meant for you/
Python was written knowing that to
build a software application right there needs to be code that is concise,
clean, and readable.
At the same time features provided by
Python helps programmers to write a variety of software applications with
Python very quickly and efficiently less so that developers can even customize
the PyCharm UI according to their specific needs and preferences. Moreover, they can extend the IDE by choosing
over 60+ plugins to meet complex project requirements.
As far and industry traction, Python
IDE is being used by all the large enterprises like Twitter, Pinterest, HP, Symantec
and even Groupon.
Features PyCharm
Code Editor
The first important feature we have
is the code editor. The intelligent code
editor provided by PyCharm enables all his programmers to write high-quality
Python code by using different color schemes or insert intensive lens
Note: Lens mode
is a feature in PyCharm that allows you to view
issues quickly and easily in your code by merely hovering over markers on the right-side
scrollbar. You can see problems, and you can click and move directly to the
part of the code that is marked. Once you are there, you can use intent actions
by using alt-enter which displays a list of suggestions.
to automatically pick the appropriate
coding style and a very context aware code completion as well. At the same time, the programmers can also
use the editor to expand the code block to an expression or logical blocks. It can also identify errors, misspellings, detect
duplicate code, and even auto generate code if need be. All this can be done on the fly, i.e., analyze
the code overall and identify the errors while writing the code.
Code Navigation
PyCharm basically helps improve the
code without putting any extra effort or time the idea by easily assisting the programmers
to go to a class, or a file a symbol and go down to the declaration invoked
from a particular reference. With Code
Navigation, the user can even find an item in the source code or the code
snippet, UI element, or a user action almost immediately.
Code Navigation allows to locate usage of various symbols and set benchmarks in the code, and at the same time the developers can even take advantage of the code navigation feature to scrutinize the code throughout.
Refactoring
Refactoring is the process of
altering an application’s source code without changing its external behavior.
The purpose of code refactoring is to improve some of the nonfunctional
properties of the code, such as readability, complexity, maintainability, and
extensibility.
Refactoring can extend the life of
source code, preventing it from becoming legacy code. The refactoring process
makes future enhancements to such code a more pleasant experience.
PyCharm definitely makes it easier for the developers to implement both local and global changes really quickly and efficiently guys so that developers can even take advantage of the refactoring options provided by the IDE while writing Python code and working with Python frameworks. Changes to local and global variables as well as other methods to introduce efficiencies that can improve the code quality are easily executed. For example, extracting variables fields, parameters, classes, etc. Python allows programmers to break up longer classes and methods through the extract method.
Support for Web Technologies
Makes it easier for programmers to
write various web applications in Python.
Python basically supports technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript,
typescript, and even CoffeeScript.
NOTE: CoffeeScript is a little language that
compiles into JavaScript. The golden rule of CoffeeScript is: “It’s just
JavaScript.” The code compiles one-to-one into the equivalent JS, and there is
no interpretation at runtime. You can use any existing JavaScript library
seamlessly from CoffeeScript (and vice-versa). The compiled output is readable,
printed, and tends to run as fast or faster than the equivalent handwritten
JavaScript.
In PyCharm, web developers have a live
editing preview option to view a single webpage simultaneously in the editor as
well as the browser. Hence,
simultaneously the live edit feature provided by the ID enables programmers to
see the changes made to the code instantaneously on a web browser.
PyCharm’s Web Assistance avails script
debuggers as well as coffee script and typescript editors, it even simplifies
isomorphic web application development
NOTE: In web development, an isomorphic application is one
whose code (in this case, JavaScript) can run both in the server and the client.
because it supports both angular JS
and node JS.
AngularJS is a JavaScript framework, whereas NodeJS is a cross-platform runtime environment. As a client-side JavaScript framework, AngularJS Angular enables developers to create dynamic web applications based on model-view-controller (MVC) architectural pattern and using HTML as a template language.
Support for Python Scientific Libraries
PyCharm further helps programmers to
use Python more efficiently in big data and data science projects. It supports
some of the widely used scientific libraries for Python started from NUM PY,
Anaconda and matplotlib, et. al.
The developers can work efficiently
with all these scientific libraries by availing the interactive graphs, deep
code insight, array viewers, provided by the IDE. PyCharm can even run the REPL Python console
provided by PyCharm to avail robust features like on the fly syntax check and
code inspection. In addition,
programmers can also integrate the IDE seamlessly with the iPython notebook to
create innovative solutions without putting extra time and effort.
Tools of PyCharm
Database Tools
In addition to supporting various
Python libraries and frameworks, PyCharm allows developers to work with several
relational databases including Oracle, SQLServer, mySQL, an even postgresSQL.
Developers can further use the IDE to
run the queries edit SQLcode, browse data, alter table data, and even analyze
the schemas.
Python further supports sqlalchemy
library and inject SQL code into code which is returning various programming
languages as well. The professional
edition of the IDE further makes it easier for the developers to hide the large
volumes of data efficiently through the data.
Visual Debugger
The Visual Debugger provided helps
the programmers to debug Python, javascipt, and Django code directly. Provided by light basically helps the
programmers to debug Python JavaScript engine will go directly.
The developers can use the Enlight
debugger to see live debugging data directly on the editor. Likewise, they can build multiple Python
processes simultaneously and step through the code bypassed libraries as well.
PyCharm further creates reusable and customizable configuration for each test
script or debugger execution.
The user can have an option to facilitate remote debugging by integrating the visual debugger with the remote interpreters directly.
Built-in Terminal
The IDE comes with a local terminal
for Windows, Linux, and Mac. The
Built-in terminal basically enables the programmers to continue the code and
test without ever leaving the IDE. With
this, the programmers can now use the IDE to basically but the Python files and
configure custom Python environments.
Developers can run interactive Python or Django consoles directly into the IDE and the console provides a useful feature like code completion and dynamic syntax change.
Software Testing
PyCharm also comes with features and
tools to simplify Python application testing.
It allows developers to perform unit testing through popular Python
testing framework like Nose2, Testify, and DocTest to name a few.
The testers even have an option to
run individual or multiple test files and test classes. They can further
integrate the ID with coverage or PY to measure the code coverage while testing
the applications as well and while testing multithreaded applications. The testers can use a thread concurrency
visualization option provided by the Professional version of the IDE to control
the application fully and efficiently.
NOTE: The
concurrency visualization tools shows the real time states of threads inside
the running process in the Threading graph tab of
the Concurrent Activities Diagram tool
window.
PyCharm enables users to deliver high quality software by implementing behavior driven development.
Remote Development Capabilities
PyCharm allows developers to connect
with various machines and build software applications remotely. The programmers
can avail the built-in SSH console provided by the IDE to basically connect to
machines and perform various development tasks remotely through SSH.
They can even run, debug, and profile
the Python applications in a remote environment by replacing the local
interpreter with that of the remote interpreter.
PyCharm enables programmers to create
reproducible development environment through a robust tool called, vagrant.
This tool basically simplifies distributed application development using
docker.
The users even have the option to integrate
PyCharm seamlessly with issue tracking systems as well.
Overview of the PyCharm Interface
So the interface let me open up my Python sugar is this is probably the first screen that
Installing python amazingly simple so
it is free, and installation is extremely straightforward as well so all you
need to do is go to the official website and select the free community version.
As it is already installed on this
machine you see projects already in the right column, where yours may be blank.
To create a new project in Python, all you need to do is it create new project
on the right side and give a name for the project – for this example, just type
it out as charmtest.
PyCharm creates the project folder
for us as you can check out on the left and it is client base and this part
actually queries all the skeleton procedures and performs a force crawl through
and checks all of the installed packages.
This step may take a while.
So, as you can see, we have a scratch
file which is a scratch dot PY guys so you can basically right click and rename
just or whatever you want.
Installing Python within PyCharm
To install an interpreter from within PyCharm, just go to File: Settings: and in settings so click on the project interpreter that is under your Project: ProjectName and on the right side you can see the current interpreter you are using. In this case, we are using Python 3.8.
Now, if you have not installed it, go to the gear icon on the right, and click add sure you can actually use the system interpreter so we might guess I've installed it using Python 3.8.
Make sure you click this and it OK
and you are done.
Adding Packages
So how can we Add all the packages to Python not everything comes in built right so again go to File: Settings is pretty much almost same way, so we go to the interpreter and then we have the packages back under this.
We use the gear icon to actually check out our interpreter now check out all the list we have faced so basically these are all of the packages that are installed for my particular case so these are all of the libraries that are installed there so in case if you need to add a library hit on the plus icon on the right side so this type in any of the libraries that you require right so there are multiple. The ones in blue are already installed. So, you just click the desired package and click the lower left button “Install Package” and that is it.
PyCharm Coding Features
Code Insight
So, let us try to type some code. Let us try to quickly import of a package. I just basically type out the first 3 letters, then it prompts me to pick up the the suggested command, so this is how intellisense walks.
As such, this is the intellisence of PyCharm, so back to the example, at this point
of time you can actually choose to type in the entire thing like IMPORT or select the option. So, this was just basically one line of code
so imagine if you must write hundreds and thousands of lines of code then this
is a lifesaver.
Another Example: When trying to
import pygame, you can see everything is grayed out you're right so we can
actually change the color by making sure we actually use something right so let
me quickly go ahead mygame.net for example I think you see the color change
right so this is basically telling us that by game is being used.
Refactor
Another example of programming
assistance… Let us suppose you are writing a simple program that sets a
parameter to the numeral “10”, i.e.., i equals to 10 and we want to print it
five times. I so I think you already guessed this
is not a very complex code right so it is going to print I so as soon as I run
this piece of code I'm supposed to get I printed to be like 5 times.
Let us suppose you decide to change the parameter “I” to “p”. We can probably go ahead and changes manually right so I can go ahead and change this to P again one more again it took like almost 20 seconds to do this for five times, so imagine if someone has to do this for thousands of lines of code so it becomes really annoying.
Keyboard Shortcuts
CTRL F
We can use control F to actually find
something and then use it right so this actually works even in scope as well so
let's say you're in the scope of a function or a user defined function or
something and then you want to find something in that particular scope. The CTRL F keyboard shortcut search option every
instance of that item within your code.
Hence, what would have done multiple changes.
ALT SHIFT C
Let’s suppose you well into coding
for an hour and you just want to check out what all the changes that you have
done, so we actually press alt shift c and see to actually give us a list of changes that we have
actually done.
alt shift c reveals all the changes that we have
done. We can see what we deleted or updated. These items listed are in reverse
order. You can see that they are definitely
useful in case you actually want to step by or check out one of the changes, or
repeat on of the , e.g., if you just
want to print the same thing over and over again you can do
CTRL D
ALT SHIFT INS
The next feature to select the
current column can be achieved by toggling alt shift ins. Select “print” hit
alt shift ins and scroll down. This allows you to group modify indents or
data fields, etc. For a wealth of information on selecting ranges and the detailed benefits of each option, goto: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/rider/Multicursor.html
Conclusion
This concludes all the basics of PyCharm. The What, Why, How of it all. Including some useful Keyboard Shortcuts, i.e., all the tips and tricks that you can use with it. For more information on a series of shortcuts goto: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/working-with-source-code.html#editor_lines_code_blocks.
Share and enjoy…
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your input, your ideas, critiques, suggestions are always welcome...
- Wasabi Roll Staff