In arcsscripting python code I see this statement all the time...
gp = arcgisscripting.create(9.3)
and then all the functions of the arcgisscripting package are addressed similar to this
something = gp.updateCursor(...
but in arcpy I rarely (if ever) see that same convention... its
something = arcpy.updateCursor(...
instead. Why the difference? Also, sometimes my autocomplete typing assist window after the . in arcpy. doesn't drop down a list even though the package has been imported and is in memory. What would be the cause of that?
Doubt it would help, but when ArcMap starts acting wonkey on me, one of my last ditch efforts is to delete/rename the normal.mxt file (it's in your profile directory - might be called something else in v10 though). The benefit is ArcMap then behaves like brand new, the downside is ALL your customizations are deleted (buttons, toolboxes, everything). Maybe there is something akin to normal.mxt for arcpy? I have no idea... Could you have somehow tuned off auto complete in the ArcGIS python window, and it somehow stuck for other IDEs somehow? Worth a shot... Just make a backup of normal.mxt first if it doesn't work!
I will say that some of us had to learn gp/arcpy/whatever scripting without auto complete. As within many things though, once you have something cool, it hard to go back! 😉
Well, I don't know what happened, but now auto complete is working. The only thing I did was to open the python window in arcGIS to see if it worked there and now it's working in pythonWin as well. Go figure.