Eric (software)

Last updated
eric
Original author(s) Detlev Offenbach
Developer(s) Detlev Offenbach
Initial release2002;22 years ago (2002)
Stable release
23.8 [1] [2]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 1 August 2023;6 months ago (1 August 2023)
Repository
Written in Python
Operating system Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows
Platform Python, Qt, PyQt
Available inEnglish, German, French, Russian, Czech, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Chinese
Type Integrated Development Environment
License GPL version 3 or later
Website eric-ide.python-projects.org

eric is a free integrated development environment (IDE) used for computer programming. Since it is a full featured IDE, it provides by default all necessary tools needed for the writing of code and for the professional management of a software project.

Contents

eric is written in the programming language Python and its primary use is for developing software written in Python. It is usable for development of any combination of Python 3 or Python 2, Qt 5 or Qt 4 and PyQt 5 or PyQt 4 projects, on Linux, macOS and Microsoft Windows platforms.

License, price and distribution

eric is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later and is thereby Free Software. This means in general terms that the source code of eric can be studied, changed and improved by anyone, that eric can be run for any purpose by anyone and that eric - and any changes or improvements that may have been made to it - can be redistributed by anyone to anyone as long as the license is not changed (copyleft).

eric can be downloaded at SourceForge and installed manually with a python installer script. [3] Most major Linux distributions include eric in their software repositories, so when using such Linux distributions eric can be obtained and installed automatically by using the package manager of the particular distribution. [4] Additionally, the author offers access to the source code via a public Mercurial repository. [5]

Characteristics

eric is written in Python and uses the PyQt Python bindings for the Qt GUI toolkit. [6] By design, eric acts as a front end for several programs, for example the QScintilla editor widget. [7]

Features

The key features of eric 6 are: [8]

Support for Python 2 and 3

Prior to the release of eric version 5.5.0, eric version 4 and eric version 5 coexisted and were maintained simultaneously, while eric 4 was the variant for writing software in Python version 2 and eric version 5 was the variant for writing software in Python version 3.

With the release of eric version 5.5.0 both variants had been merged into one, so that all versions as of eric version 5.5.0 support writing software in Python 2 as well as in Python 3, making the separate development lanes of eric version 4 and 5 obsolete. Those two separate development lanes are no longer maintained, and the last versions prior to merging them both to 5.5.0 were versions 4.5.25 and 5.4.7. [9]

Releases

Versioning scheme

Until 2016, eric used a software versioning scheme with a three-sequence identifier, e.g. 5.0.1. The first sequence represents the major version number which is increased when there are significant jumps in functionality, the second sequence represents the minor number, which is incremented when only some features or significant fixes have been added, and the third sequence is the revision number, which is incremented when minor bugs are fixed or minor features have been added.

From late 2016, the version numbers show the year and month of release, e.g. 16.11 for November 2016. [10]

Release strategy

eric follows the development philosophy of Release early, release often , following loosely a time-based release schedule. Currently a revision version is released around the first weekend of every month, a minor version is released annually, in most cases approximately between December and February.

Version history

The following table shows the version history of eric, starting from version 4.0.0. Only major (e.g. 6.0.0) and minor (e.g. 6.1.0) releases are listed; revision releases (e.g. 6.0.1) are omitted.

Legend:Old version, not maintainedOlder version, still maintainedCurrent stable versionLatest preview versionFuture release
BranchVersionRelease dateMajor changes
4Old version, no longer maintained: 4.0.02007-06-03
Old version, no longer maintained: 4.1.02008-02-03
Old version, no longer maintained: 4.2.02008-08-09
  • Added a toolbar manager
Old version, no longer maintained: 4.3.02009-02-08
  • Changed license to GPL "v3 or later"
Old version, no longer maintained: 4.4.02010-01-09
  • Changed the help viewer to a full blown web browser (based on QtWebKit) [12]
Old version, no longer maintained: 4.5.02012-02-04
  • Added Mac OS X to the officially supported platforms [13]
5Old version, no longer maintained: 5.0.02010-07-04
  • The eric 5 branch represents the new Python 3 variant of eric. It is not supporting Python 2 (yet). For Python 2 support the development of the eric 4 branch is continued. [12]
Old version, no longer maintained: 5.1.02011-02-27
Old version, no longer maintained: 5.2.02012-02-18
  • Added Mac OS X to the officially supported platforms [13]
Old version, no longer maintained: 5.3.02013-02-03
  • Added support for Qt5 [14]
Old version, no longer maintained: 5.4.02014-01-07
  • Added support for PyQt5 projects [9]
Old version, no longer maintained: 5.5.02014-10-27
  • Added Python 2 support to the eric 5 branch, so that from now on both, Python 3 and Python 2, are supported by one single version of eric, making the eric 4 branch for Python 2 obsolete, which is not further continued [9]
6Old version, no longer maintained: 6.0.02014-12-28
  • eric 6 replaces the eric 5.5.x line of development. It is usable with any combination of Python 2 or Python 3, Qt5 or Qt4 and PyQt5 or PyQt4, on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows platforms
Old version, no longer maintained: 6.1.02015-12-05
  • Added multithreading support for checkers to make use of multiple CPUs/CPU-Cores [15]
16Old version, no longer maintained: 16.112016-11-12
  • Switching the release scheme [10]
Old version, no longer maintained: 16.122016-12-03
17Old version, no longer maintained: 17.012017-01-01
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.022017-02-04
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.032017-03-03
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.042017-04-07
  • Minimum required Python versions increased: Python 2 - 2.7.10; Python 3 - 3.4.0
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.052017-05-06
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.062017-06-03
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.072017-07-02
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.082017-08-03
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.092017-09-01
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.102017-10-07
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.112017-11-03
Old version, no longer maintained: 17.122017-12-02
18Current stable version:18.012018-01-06
Current stable version:18.022018-02-03
  • Added support for attributes introduced with Qt 5.9 and Qt 5.10 [16]
  • New session file format
Current stable version:18.032018-03-04
Current stable version:18.042018-04-02
Current stable version:18.052018-05-01
Current stable version:18.062018-06-02
Current stable version:18.072018-07-07
Current stable version:18.082018-08-02
Current stable version:18.092018-09-02
Current stable version:18.102018-10-03
Current stable version:18.112018-11-01
Current stable version:18.122018-12-01
19Current stable version:19.012019-01-10
Current stable version:19.022019-02-02
Current stable version:19.032019-03-02
Current stable version:19.042019-04-06
Current stable version:19.052019-05-04
Current stable version:19.062019-06-02
Current stable version:19.072019-07-07
Current stable version:19.082019-08-03
Current stable version:19.092019-09-07
Current stable version:19.102019-10-03
Current stable version:19.112019-11-01
Current stable version:19.122019-12-07
20Current stable version:20.012020-01-01
Current stable version:20.022020-02-02

Name

Several allusions are made to the British comedy group Monty Python, which the Python programming language is named after. Eric alludes to Eric Idle, a member of the group, as does IDLE, the standard python IDE shipped with most distributions. [17]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "News".
  2. ↑ Detlev Offenbach. "ANN: eric 23.8 released".
  3. ↑ Sourceforge: Eric Integrated Development Environment
  4. ↑ Ubuntu package search: eric
  5. ↑ Official website: Access information for mercurial repository
  6. ↑ Reitz, Kenneth; Schlusser, Tanya (August 30, 2016). The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python: Best Practices for Development. O'Reilly Media, Inc. p. 31. ISBN   9781491933237 . Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  7. ↑ Charney, Reg (August 30, 2004). "Programming Tools: Eric3". Linux Journal. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  8. ↑ eric-ide.python-projects.org: Features
  9. 1 2 3 eric news 2014
  10. 1 2 eric news 2016
  11. 1 2 eric news 2007
  12. 1 2 eric news 2010
  13. 1 2 eric news 2012
  14. ↑ eric news 2013
  15. ↑ eric news 2015
  16. ↑ eric news 2018
  17. ↑ Bidwell, Jonni (April 14, 2018). "Best IDE for Python in 2018". TechRadar. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
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