Ever since Maya 2008 enabled Python scripting, I've been trying to do as much scripting in Python as possible. But, I grew up with Maya's scripting language Mel, and Maya's built-in IDE, the 'Script Editor'. The script editor leaves a lot to be desired, but one thing it has that I love is "evaluate selection": You highlight some code, hit Enter, and the code is executed: You don't have to create a whole new script with just that code and execute it, etc (which seems to be standard practice in other IDE's). When I picked up Python, I had a terrible time finding any Python IDE that had 'evaluate selection'. But then I found Wing, and fell in love.
Even though I may have a pretty firm grasp on Mel scripting, I was still a programming noob: I've never had any formal 'programming' training (for example, I didn't know anything about OOP, since Mel simply doesn't support it), and never worked with a debugger, or an advanced IDE. Wing has been a great learning experience for me, teaching me these fundamentals (along with a lot of help from my compatriots as well).
I started out by authoring plugins in Wing that would let it send it's 'evaluated selection' Python code to Maya, letting me bypass Maya's script editor entirely: Code in Wing -> execute in Maya. But soon I had modules written in Python that relied on a currently open Maya scene file. I learned how to import 'maya.standalone' in Wing, giving me a physical Maya session in Wing. This let me physically open Maya files in Wing, and run Python code on them, which was pretty cool. But Wing's debugger seemed to have an issue with this: I and others believe this is a function of Maya's poor Python implementation (and I'm still trying to figure out why it doesn't work). Open Maya file in Wing, and execute modules on that file = success. Try to debug those modules on the open Maya file = fail. Now what?
A buddy of mine turned me on to remote debugging: From Maya you can open a scene file, launch your Python code (in the script editor), and with Wing open and 'listening', Wing can actually debug the code executed externally in Maya on the fly. This is really powerful, and making my life much easier to troubleshoot broken code. Too bad it only works for Python, and not Mel too :-P
I've setup some notes on my mel wiki covering this stuff:
And
If you do any type of scripting in Maya, and especially Python scripting, I'd recomend you taking a look at this. FYI, Wing comes in 3 flavors, and you'll need the "Professional" one to get this stuff working.
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