I came to python from other languages and have been loving it a lot. It has some helpful functions, run the interpreter and type help(object) to get help on that object (!). You can do dir(object) to list all the different bits on an object too. Quite a lot of python libraries I've been trying this week of exploration have been sadly lacking in documentation :( Using pydb has helped a lot, I can set a breakpoint inside of the program to work out where it goes and what it's doing.
Also may I recommend this fine thread:
hxxp://www.rhinocerus.net/forum/lang-python/556003-pyflakes-pylint-pychecker-other-tools.html
Ben's suggestions were awesome. I'd used vi a long time but never bothered learning it properly. Wow, even with only a couple of hours of learning and Ben's add-on's like rope vi becomes an editing god. You can even select stuff in rectangles down the screen (!) No doubt emacs is even better but there's no way I'm going to spend all the time learning those zillion Ctrl+ABNZUIBGFUIHUIFUI keys...
Still if you like emacs Ben has tools for there useful to python too.