Linux

I really like Kate as an advanced editor with syntax highlighting, auto-completion, plugin support. I would then use the Terminal pane at the bottom to run my code during development.

However, if you want a full IDE with included dependency management, test runner, and debugger it's probably not enough.

One of my professors said you don't need an IDE, the Linux system already is a development environment. Not sure that I fully agree with that, especially thinking of things like Android Studio that include the virtual machine smartphone, but it's still an approach thing that is worth trying out.

My husband, who mostly codes in assembly these days (he's mostly retired so his hobby is old atari, amstrad, and spectrum computers), went from VSCode, to Sublime, to now Kate. He prefers to use 100% open source apps, without strings attached. VSCode is nice, but it has lots of weird stuff in it that aren't necessarily up to the spirit of open source. So Kate works perfectly for him, although VSCodium would do well as well (it's just that Kate has better syntax highlighters for his weird assembly). Also VSCode/ium is using about 250 MB of RAM, while Kate about 45 (and Sublime only about 32).

Geany https://www.geany.org/

Vim/neovim

I use Helix. It's kinda like a preconfigured Neovim. I really like it, my only complaint is that it (currently) doesn't have a filetree

Eclipse Theia if you already know VSCode.

It copied the interface and functionality and is compatible with most VSCode extensions. Available as an AppImage on Linux.

Zed

with the rise of LSP, i feel that ides have become less necessary. get an editor that you like, add an LSP client if there's not one built-in, then install the server for your language.

For python PyCharm is unbeatable.

Codium. It's VSCode without the proprietary stuff

Netbeans for java was good to me as a student.

I use PyCharm for work but it's not FOSS or beginner-friendly. PyCharm does have a free community edition which is awesome if you're mostly into FOSS for the $0 aspect.

• https://thonny.org/ - for the first few days of learning and easy setup
• https://www.spyder-ide.org/ - especially good for data science
• https://eric-ide.python-projects.org/ - full-featured general purpose IDE

Codium is fine and technically FOSS although it's association with Microsoft taints it for anyone who still hates MS from the bad old days. Also it's an Electron app.

Honestly, just try a few of the big ones and see what you like, I feel like with IDEs it's all about personal preferences and rarely about actual amount of features.

Good ones to start with can be PyCharm and vscodium, but try a few, that's the best option.

For Python definitely PyCharm.