part igetting started with python vast number of other tools are available for you to use when writing python applications this book doesn' tell you much about them because idle performs every task needed and it comes with python howeveras your skills increaseyou might find that tools such as komodo edit (activestate com/komodo-edit/downloadsare easier to work with than idle you can find great list of these tools at org/moin/integrateddevelopmentenvironments understanding the integrated development environment (idleyou can literally create any python application you want using just text editor as long as the editor outputs pure text rather than formatted text as word processor doesyou can use it to write python code howeverusing text editor isn' efficient or straightforward to make the development process easierdevelopers have written interactive development environments (idesthe ide that comes with python is idle howevermany other ides are capable of working with python the feature set provided by ides varies in factthat' why there are so many of them on the market idle provides basic feature set that is shared by most ides out there it provides the functionality required to write python code recognize and highlight keywords and certain types of special text perform both simple editing (such as cutcopyand pasteand codespecific editing (such as showing the parentheses that surround an expressionsave and open python files browse the python path to make locating files easy browse and locate python classes perform simple debugging tasks (removing errors from the codeidle differs from the command-line version of python in that you get fullfledged gui and you can accomplish many tasks much more easily through idle than through the command line in additionthe command line doesn' really offer all the same features as idle yesyou can debug your application using the command linebut it' difficulterror-prone process using idle is whole lot easier