Mokka mit Schlag » 2007 » August

The ABA ranks species known to occur in North America north of Mexico by order of difficulty, 1-6. Most birds that regularly occur here are 1’s, which covers a lot of ground: everything from House Sparrow to Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow, American Avocet to Willet. Some of the 1’s are actually quite difficult to find. Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow and Yellow-billed Cuckoo both gave me a lot of trouble for a couple of years, and I missed them repeatedly.
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Augochlora pura, Prospect Park 2007-08-19
Credit to John S. Ascher for the ID

I actually found this bee inside the flower, and snapped these shots as it was coming out.
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Last Sunday, August 12, Peter Dorosh led the Brooklyn Bird Club on a trip to Jamaica Bay where we had a probable Long-billed Dowitcher. Short-billed Dowitchers are relatively common around here at this time of year, but Long-billed are much less so. The problem is that unless the birds are in breeding plumage or calling, they’re virtually indistinguishable. For example, despite the names some Short-billed Dowitchers have longer bills than some Long-billed Dowitchers. Unfortunately at the times of year when the birds come through New York, they are neither calling nor in breeding plumage.

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Zabulon Skipper, Poanes zabulon
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-8-18
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Digger Wasp, Scolia dubia
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007-8-18
Credit to Troy Bartlett for the ID
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I’ve been working on a mixed language Python-Java project lately. Increasingly I find myself needing to trace into the Python code, and I miss the features of Eclipse when doing so. (Yes, I’ve installed PyDev. No, it isn’t very good.) Are there any IDEs out there that let me do more than syntax color the Python? Since my primary interest is in exploring other people’s code, what I’m really looking for are the browsing features of Eclipse’s Java support. In particular I’d like to be able to click a method name or variable and find out where that is declared. I’d also like to be able to click a definition of a function or class and get a list of references to that item in the project.

This functionality is easily available in Java, and it’s very helpful. Can anything out there in Python-land do this, or is this a place where a dynamically typed language isn’t so helpful? (How would you even know at compile-time which class will be bound to a variable?) I do notice that the Python folks I’m working with eschew IDEs in favor of emacs themselves. Is this the S.O.P for Pythonistas? or for that matter for all dynamically typed languages?