Comparing RStudio and Spyder

Recently I have been searching for a Python’s IDE that is similar to R’s RStudio. While ipython notebook is better than text editor for data analysis, it suffers from two problems still:

• version control is difficult as output in the notebook may change even though the code doesn’t (e.g. when there’s a randomized element in the analysis).
• the input-output layout is meant to be narrative, which is not ideal for analysis. For example, when there are many plots, I have to scroll up and down a lot to navigate. Because of its focus on narrative, ipython notebook resembles knitr more than RStudio.

After much searching, I found Spyder, which is an almost-perfect equivalent of RStudio. It comes pre-packaged with Anaconda and works seamlessly with IPython and the suite of data science libraries (numpy, pandas, etc.)

Here I compare the most important features of RStudio and Spyder so that one can make a quick switch between the two. One could read Spyder’s tutorial, but for an experienced data analyst much of it is fluff.

RStudio and Spyder comparison

Function	Rstudio	Spyder
Run	Ctrl - R	F5 to run the entire script F9 to run selection or line
Re-Run	Ctrl + Shift + P	Ctrl + F6
Help	help()	help() – Will also show the doc string of your own function
	F1 with cursor over object	Ctrl-i with cursor over object
Clean workspace	rm(list = ls())	%reset %reset -f to skip confirmation
Auto-completion	TAB	TAB
Go to Source	F2 with cursor over object	Ctrl+Left Click on object
Debug	debug() debugonce()	Ctrl + F5 starts pdb %debug starts debug where exception occurs
Search across Files	Ctrl + Shift + F	Ctrl + Shift + F
Variable Viewer	Environment pane (top right)	Variable Explorer pane (top right)

Tweaks to make Spyder more like Rstudio

• Plot in a separate windows (instead of default inline): Tools, Preferences, Ipython Console, Graphics and under Graphics Backend select “automatic” instead of “inline”

Unique Spyder features and tips

• Console: Use ipython console instead of python console
• Style: Go to Preferences > Editor > Code Introspection/Analysis and select the tickbox next to Style analysis (PEP8)
• Cell (similar to ipython notebook): Ctrl+Enter executes the current cell. A cell is defined as the code between two lines which start with the agreed tag #%%. Shift+Enter executes the current cell and advances the cursor to the next cell