Wing IDE 101 8.0

Wing 101 is a Python IDE that has been specially designed for teaching purposes. In this respect, it is a limited edition of other products by the same name. In my opinion, one of the biggest assets of Wing 101 is its great documentation, which includes a carefully planned tutorial, a user guide as well as help files. This is great considering it is mostly intended for students.

The program’s interface is actually quite similar to those of other IDE’s. Most of the space is devoted to writing your code, while there are some panels on the sides and the usual top menu. The same as other modern IDEs, it is allowed to work on different pieces of code by opening additional tabs. In addition, if you like personalizing your working environment, you will be glad to know that it lets you change the appearance of practically everything you can see on your screen.

As other IDEs, Wing 101 comes with some features to ease coding, including simple search for a given segment. However, its simplification for teaching purposes comes with a toll, because it certainly lacks a powerful editor with more professional features. Likewise, Wing 101 also has a graphical debugger to help you depurate your code from errors. Still, it is quite simple compared with others.

All in all, while the features in Wing 101 are probably enough for most programming students, it is likely that they will soon feel they need more and decide to move to a professional IDE. In this regard, there are other products of the Wing family that could fill the gap. Unfortunately, neither Wing Pro nor Wing Personal are free; so, it would be a good idea to consider their prices and features before making a decision.