There was a time when we had to learn the basics of programming using Fortran or Pascal. Now many students start their programming lessons using the Python programming language. Python is open-source and is available for all the major operating systems. It offers all the usual lexical elements such as the operators, loops, statements and more that are needed to learn the programming basics.
But for learning a new language or practicing your coding skills we need an IDE (integrated development environment) such as Mu. It is an IDE that contains a code editor and comes together with the Python. The code editor is not only syntax highlighting but also displays possible keywords or statements as you type something. For example, if you type prin, it will display different variations of print() which you can use to quickly finish your statements.
When installing, it shows you a mode selector window. We can choose a mode for Mu to work in – it can be ESP MicroPython, Lego MicroPython, PyBoard MicroPython, PyGame Zero MicroPython, regular Python, and Raspberry Pi. We can choose the mode later from the Mu window.
In the code editor, we can write Python code and then click on the Run button in the toolbar. It will run the code using the in-built Python interpreter and display the output too. If it encounters any errors then it will display the error and the line numbers.
Mu has a code checker tool that can check your Python code for lexical errors. As soon as you click on the icon of Check button in the toolbar, it checks your code and highlights the errors. You can click on the various errors to know more about them. Even if you forget to add a single white space before a keyboard or after a variable, it marks that as an error and shows you how to correct it.
You can download Mu Code Editor from https://codewith.mu/.