JetBrains Debuts PyCharm Educational Edition
If you’ve ever wanted to learn Python programming, get ready to be blown away.
Today we’re launching the free and open source PyCharm Educational Edition for students and teachers. This easy-to-use yet powerful Python IDE includes special interactive educational functionality to help novice programmers learn the craft and turn professional quicker than ever before! It combines the easy learning curve of interactive coding platforms with the power of a real-world professional tool.
Why PyCharm Educational Edition?
We all know that computer programming studies are one of today’s major global trends, driven by open-access, non-credit education. Python has long been used for educational purposes and is now the most popular language used to teach programming for beginners. We decided to create this new educational IDE, because we at JetBrains PyCharm, being a part of the Python community, are committed to providing quality, professional, seamless solutions for learning programming with Python, keeping the needs of both novice programmers and educators in mind.
What is so special about PyCharm Educational Edition?
In designing this tool we have been inspired by Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, who said:
“We believe that there should be no clear-cut distinction between tools used by professionals and tools used for education—just as professional writers use the same language and alphabet as their readers!” https://www.python.org/doc/essays/cp4e/
PyCharm is a professional tool recognized among professionals all around the globe. At some point it occurred to us that, with some work, its power could also be harnessed to serve educational purposes.
We analyzed educational trends and tools on the market carefully. To understand what should be improved in PyCharm and how to make it the best educational IDE possible, we polled hundreds of instructors from different universities all around the world.
We found out that there are two opposite approaches to learning programming. One is based on using interactive online educational platforms and editors, which are extremely easy to start with. Despite an easy learning curve, these are not real development tools, and once you get used to them it may be difficult to switch to a real development environment and develop something real. The other approach is centered around real code editors and IDEs tools. While advanced, they are often too complex for beginners. Instead of learning programming, you must invest considerable efforts and time just into understanding how the tool works, before actually learning the essentials of programming.
PyCharm Educational Edition aims to combine both these two worlds. We’ve made it easy to get started with, not intimidating, yet powerful enough to guide you all the way through to becoming a professional developer.
All the learning you need, for FREE
PyCharm Educational Edition is absolutely free and open-source. Novice programmers can download and use it for educational or any other purposes—for free. Instructors and course authors can use it to create, modify and share their own courses.
Included are learning essentials like an integrated Python console, Debugger and VCS, along with unique educational features such as “fill in the missing code” exercises, intelligent hints, checks, smart suggestions, code auto-completion, and much more.
So, what’s inside, besides the PyCharm Community Edition?
- Special new Educational project type. From a student’s point of view, an Educational project is like an interactive course that includes tasks and files for editing, and a Check button that gives instant feedback and scores your assignment. With this type of project, teachers can create courses or assignments with lessons and tasks, create exercise code, define expected results, write tests that will work in the background. In particular, they can employ the “fill in the missing code” educational technique where you ask a student to insert the correct code in an already existing code sample.
- A greatly simplified interface to make the learning curve as easy as possible. The advanced tools are hidden by default and may be activated as you progress.
- On Windows, Python is installed together with PyCharm, with no additional installation required. Linux and Mac OS installers automatically detect a system interpreter. All you need to start learning is just to install PyCharm.
Possible Applications
PyCharm Educational Edition can be used in MOOCs, self-studying courses or traditional programming courses. In addition to going through interactive courses, you can also use normal Python projects and the integrated Python console, as well as the debugger, VCS, and everything else that PyCharm already offers.
What to do next?
Don’t wait any longer — download PyCharm Education Edition for your platform and start learning Python programming today!
For more details and learning materials, visit the PyCharm Educational Edition website and check the Quick Start guide to get rolling. Or, for a quick visual overview, watch this introductory video:
Then, get involved:
- Spread the word about this tool
- Follow us on twitter
- Report bugs in our public issue tracker
- Discuss and share in our forum
- And if you need any help, you’re always welcome to contact our professional support team
Read our blog to stay tuned for news, updates and everything that goes on with PyCharm Educational Edition. And do give us feedback on how we’re doing.
Did you know?
JetBrains recently launched the Free Student License program. With this program any student or educator can use any JetBrains product for free!
Develop with pleasure!
JetBrains PyCharm Team
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