Spyder is a free and open source scientific environment for Python. It combines advanced editing, analysis, debugging, and profiling, with data exploration, interactive execution, deep inspection, and visualization capabilities. Spyder is sponsored by open source supporters QuanSight, and NumFOCUS, as well as individual donors.
$0
per month
Xcode
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Xcode is an IDE used to develop, test, and distribute apps across all Apple platforms, featuring Swift and SwiftUI with a multiplatform app experience, enhanced editor features to help users code faster.
Spyder is an open-source Python IDE designed for the movement of data science work. Spyder comes with an Anaconda package manager distribution, so depending on your setup you may have installed it on your machine.
Spyder includes most of the "standard IDE" features you can expect, such as a strong syntax code editor, Python code rendering, and an integrated text browser.
Spyder is used when we want to develop a code that is useful and able to explore proper documentation of the code that has been written. We use Spyder to perform data-related operations like filtration, cleaning, and enhancing the data qualities. There some cases where it is less appropriate like working in an environment, creating dashboards of data visualizations and plots.
This is almost not a case of Xcode being the 300-pound gorilla in the space, but of it being essentially the ONLY viable gorilla in the space. There are other text editors, of course, that can be used for coding; and in some cases other IDE's might make sense for a cross-platform development scenario, but since this is Apple's in-house tool, fighting against that flow is just going to be an exercise in frustration. And, if you need help from Developer Support, they are going to be most familiar with Xcode.
It is fairly straightforward to use. Pretty much good to go as soon as you install it. The IDE itself is very user friendly, and it is only limited by whatever limitations Python has as a language. Great for those who want to run their scripts quickly or do some Python programming without fussing.
Xcode occasionally exhibits some behaviors that are hard to explain, but are generally cleared by restarting the program. In an application this large and complex, I suppose this is somewhat expected. The sheer vastness of the frameworks collection has to be a huge management issue all by itself. However, those breaks in the flow can have impact on developer productivity.
Since we don't use the cloud based features of Xcode, it is basically available 24/7 for us. We don't need the extended compilation features that are offered in the cloud as our projects to this point have not been that large or complex. We have never seen a wholesale breakdown of Xcode availability at any point in our use of the product.
Every developer wants faster compiles, but that can be achieved by either going to the cloud or by provisioning the local station to a higher powered configuration. My only minor complaint is the amount of local mass storage that Xcode as a system consumes. This makes it interesting to set up a development environment on a midrange laptop, however it is easily managed with external storage at a reasonable price.
Most of data scientists or data engineers are either using ec2 on the cloud or Atom or PyCharm locally. It is a bit hard to find people who are still using Spyder and have the sight of the IDE and can help you to answer your question.
I think Spyder doesn't stack up as well as other IDEs due to its many limitations. But it is available for free and that is one advantage it has over its competitors
Xcode is a much easier to use and full featured IDE than many of the competitors. It also is a way better experience to use. Much better looking in general
Xcode only loses points due to the occasional situation where it manages to somehow tie itself into a knot and starts to exhibit odd symptoms. This is almost always solved by simply saving progress and restarting the environment. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too frequently and is easily repaired while taking a short break to walk around and stretch.
