Hey guys,
Recently I had Java removed from my system by IT and it broke Eclipse. So I did some searching and found Python Tools for Visual Studio.
I guess it has been around for a while, but I didn’t know about it before now. It’s a completely FREE IDE if you install the VS 2012 Integrated + Isolated Shells and it supports advanced features like Python Interactive Mode while debugging in Maya and lots of other stuff (check out the videos on the codeplex page).
My impressions for the past two weeks of use are that it is awesome and I’m switching to it from Eclipse for Maya/Python development.
The version 1.5 binary release does not yet support remote debugging (which is required for debugging in Maya), but since the project is Open Source you can download and compile the latest code yourself, which does have remote debugging. Instructions for building are here.
The team working on this here at Microsoft had no idea Python was so popular in our industry and they are eager to hear feedback. They are shaping the product roadmap based on user needs and so far that has mostly been server people and Microsoft Research. Check it out if you have time!