Finally! A Django IDE with Real Code Completion and Template Support

Now it seems like forever ago, but I have been on the hunt for a good Django IDE for a very long time. I have tried PyDev, Aptana, Komodo, TextMate, Vim, Emacs, Wing IDE and every variation in between, but was never satisfied with the featurset. I wanted complete python language support and completion, complete support for Django Templates, total HTML support, as well as complete Javascript (specifically jQuery) support. Most editors made the mistake of having support for some of those individually, but I can’t get javascript support inside of a Django Template etc.

The magical and awesome app that represents the first real attempt at a complete Django development environment? Netbeans!

I know it sounds crazy, but progress is being made, and while its a boatload of effort to get it built, and even then, not much of the promised featureset actually works. But those are just details, examination of the code available at:

http://code.google.com/p/netbeans-django/

shows some real work being done towards a Django project type. Moreover, a recent blog post from someone at Sun alludes to this support being available as soon as Netbeans 7.0.

Perhaps this is just another let down waiting to happen, but the existing Python code support is fantastic, and significant strides appear to already have been made towards the goal of total Django integration. If you want to try out the existing language support, just grab the Netbeans 7M2 build and install the Python plugin!

Can Someone Get Us A Real Django IDE?

So the more I work with Django the more I long for a solid development environment to work in. I use Wingware for much of my python development, with its rockin debugger and code completion, its more than I could ask for. Until the curse of the Java class. This quarter I’m taking a Java projects course, most of the class uses Eclipse but a few use Netbeans. My problem is, I got spoiled so fast by the incredible templates support, content suggestions, quick fixes and always dead on code completion. Going back to Wing feels like a halfway-there IDE. I know that pythons interpreted nature makes source completion much more difficult, now I would argue that with an interpreter, you could actually step through the code to some extent. However, I respect that dynamic objects are never gonna be easy to support. My beef is with the lack of support for super-popular frameworks (this goes for everybody!) Ruby on Rails has literally dozens of solid IDEs and a few that are just spectacular (see Aptana, or Netbeans). Why can’t I get even basic highlighting support for my Django templates? Why can’t I get any completion options on Models except my own?

Its just frustrating, Django is still a pleasure to develop in, even with just Gedit and a terminal, but is it really out of the question to consider providing a big pretty environment for those of us that like that?

I did dig up this and this. I guess its a step in the right direction, but its almost embarrassing next to the Rails environments.