Does anyone have any recommendations for best python IDE's that are compatible with ArcGIS? I'm looking for something that has line numbers and good debugging tools. Something better than the default IDLE program that is installed already with ArcGIS. We thought that PyScripter would be a good option, but it appears that it is a malicious program. I appreciate any direction you can provide.
Most IDEs are compatible with ArcGIS, so the question boils down to asking what the best IDE is in general, for which you will get a wide range of responses. Since line numbers and debugging tools are common in IDEs, I don't see any requirements you have that would indicate one IDE is better than others.
Regarding
We thought that PyScripter would be a good option, but it appears that it is a malicious program.
I am not a huge PyScripter fan, but to say an actively maintained open source IDE is "a malicious program" is a bold statement. What information/criteria are you using to come to your determination?
Our IT department ran a scan on PyScripter using Virus Total and it McAfee-GW-Edition threw a red flag, so they deemed it as malicious. Are there any third-party ide's out there that might be "safer" to use?
There are numerous reasons antivirus might flag a program, some of them being false positives. That said, picking a fight over PyScripter isn't really necessary since there are so many other Python IDEs available.
Lots of folks use PyCharm. But as I lean towards the lazy side, I always take the path of least resistance so I use Spyder since I can easily add it to a cloned environment. I have found it very intuitive and easy to use. I probably use only a minor amount of Spyder's full functionality.
I'd recommend Notepad++. I have been using this free source code editor myself for many years now, as it supports several languages.
I started using it to create little MapBasic apps (way back in my MapInfo years) and nowadays I use it for Python, JavaScript, HTML, essentially everything... (Hmm, everything except R. For your R scripts I'd recommend RStudio.)
I am a big fan of Spyder . Spyder 4.0 is recently out and I use it for large and small projects. I have used them all, but I have settled in on spyder. Some people who do multilanguage programming go the "visual studio".
PS, I am using ArcGIS Pro 2.5 which isn't out yet, and there are some installation procedures, so you can just install Spyder 3 (in your clone I presume) or follow these instructions.
NOTE, they will be updates when 2.5 officially releases.
I've lately been using Visual Studio Code and found it to be a game changer for ArcPy development. The main reasons I like it (I know other IDE's may have some of these tools):
1. Can execute script line by line by highlighting it and hitting shift+enter. This is huge when you have a large data processing script and it fails a few minutes into processing. You can then just fix the line with the error and re-run until it works. This single feature alone allowed me to finish many python projects that I had never quite finished.
2. Great debugging tools. You can step in and out of loops and functions and also add breaks into the code.
3. Easy to integrate with GitHub and a huge library of extensions.
