I have mentioned before about using VIM with embedded Python but I didn't mention what it is. Its a version of VIM specially compiled with built in python. Its a bit of a pain to set up as the main VIM site does not ship such a version and you have to build it yourself. This involves downloading the VIM source and the Python source and building VIM in such a way as to tell it where the python libraries can be found.
Once this is done it is quite cool. From within VIM I can type something like:
:py print dir("")
and remind myself of what methods a string object has. I can remind myself how to append arrays to arrays by typing
:py print [1, 2, 3] + [4, 5, 6]
and seeing how this compares to using append (it's different).
To manipulate the vim buffer it is possible to go:
:py import vim :py vim.current.buffer[0] = 'hello peter'
to change the first line of the buffer to 'hello peter'
I think any other VIM/Python enthusiasts out there will already have their mouths watering by now and will be off downloading so I will just refer them to
:help py
VIM has similar support for perl and ruby and other sundry languages.
Peter's Moblog
Essential lunch time reading.