Red - Unit Testing with Python

So.  Armed with my new favorite IDE -- PyDev, the first thing I'm starting to look for is a strategy for unit testing Python.  Since I'm starting afresh, I'm planning to write tests to lay out my objectives, then learn how to create the functionality for the tests.

I'm not trying to be blinded too much by the way I usually work, but my expectation is that I will be able to find a unit testing framework that can be integrated into PyDev (or Eclipse, as the case may be).  Then I can write tests that will live "alongside" my classes and I can run the tests programmatically.

We'll see.

Green - Developing in Python

I selected PyDev (http://pydev.sourceforge.net/) as the tool to start out with.  There seems to be huge enthusiasm for plain-text editors in the Python community.  No doubt, it's fun to improvise on the command line.  I liken the feeling to going back to nature -- grabbing hold of the rough edges and learning to love them.  But I've grown too addicted to more full-featured editors.

PyDev is an open-source Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org) plug-in with a pretty healthy feature set -- code completion, syntax highlighting, integrated debugging, refactoring, unit testing, third-party plug-ins, and on and on.  The main criticisms I see about PyDev are about the complexity/overhead of Eclipse and the fact that you need to run it on a pretty beefy machine.  After years of Visual Studio, I'm used to omnibus IDEs.  And the machines I use have some horsepower.

I saw that PyDev was recently purchased by Aptana.  I don't know enough about the Python ecosystem to know if I should be concerned that PyDev will go a commercial route.  But I suppose on the scale of worries, that one is pretty small.

So off I go.