Thonny Explained

Thonny is a free and open-source integrated development environment for Python that is designed for beginners. It was created by Aivar Annamaa, an Estonian programmer. It supports different ways of stepping through code, step-by-step expression evaluation, detailed visualization of the call stack and a mode for explaining the concepts of references and heap.^[1]

Features

• Line numbers
• Statement stepping without breakpoints
• Live variables during debugging
• Stepping through evaluation of the expressions (expressions get replaced by their values)
• Separate windows for executing function calls (for explaining local variables and call stack)
• Variables and memory can be explained either by using simplified model (name → value) or by using more realistic model (name → address/id → value)
• Simple pip GUI
• Support for CPython and MicroPython
• Support for running and managing files on a remote machine via SSH
• Possibility to log user actions for replaying or analyzing the programming process

^{[2] [3] [4] [5]}

Availability

The program works on Windows, macOS and Linux. It is available as a binary bundle including the recent Python interpreter^[3] or pip-installable package.^[6] It can be installed via the operating-system package manager on Debian, Raspberry Pi, Ubuntu, and Fedora.

Reception

Thonny has received favorable reviews from Python and computer science education communities.^{[7] [8] [9]} It has been a recommended tool in several programming MOOCs.^{[10] [11]} Since June 2017 it has been included by default in the Raspberry Pi's official operating system distribution Raspberry Pi OS.^[12]

See also

• List of integrated development environments for Python programming language
• Toolbox
• Kojo
• JUDO
• BASIC-256
• Microsoft Small Basic

External links

• • Development site

Notes and References

1. Introducing Thonny, a Python IDE for learning programming . Annamaa . Aivar . 2015 . ACM . Proceedings of the 15th Koli Calling Conference on Computing Education Research . 117–121 . Koli, Finland.
2. Thonny, a Python IDE for learning programming . Annamaa . Aivar . 2015 . ACM . Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education . 343 . Vilnius, Lithuania.
3. Web site: Thonny website . 28 October 2018.
4. Web site: Thonny on a Raspberry Pi: Using the new Python IDE in Raspbian . The MagPi Magazine . 28 October 2018.
5. Web site: Learn to code with Thonny — a Python IDE for beginners . Fedora Magazine . 28 October 2018.
6. Web site: Thonny Python distribution . Python Package Index . 28 October 2018.
7. Web site: Are you a Python newbie? Meet the IDE for beginners . JAXenter . 28 October 2018.
8. Web site: New Term New Tool - Thonny, a Python IDE . C'est la Z . 28 October 2018.
9. Web site: Python IDEs for beginners - Thonny, Geany or Idle . ProjectCodeEd . 28 October 2018.
10. Web site: Installing Packages in Thonny . Python Data Visualization MOOC by Rice University . 28 October 2018.
11. Web site: Thonny . Programming MOOC by University of Tartu . 28 October 2018.
12. Web site: A Raspbian desktop update with some new programming tools . Raspberry Pi blog . 28 October 2018.