how do I launch IDLE, the development environment for Python, on Mac OS 10.7?

Question

I am running python 2.7.1. I can't figure out how to launch the IDLE IDE. I am told it comes already installed with python, but I can't find it using spotlight.

Answer 1

In the stock Mac OS X python installation, idle is found in /usr/bin, which is not (easily) accessible from Finder and not indexed by Spotlight. The quickest option is to open the Terminal utility and type 'idle' at the prompt. For a more Mac-like way of opening it, you'll have to create a small app or shortcut to launch /usr/bin/idle for you (an exercise left to the reader).