I use Enthought Canopy as my python distribution due to its suitability for scientific computation. However, I use pytools in Visual Studio as my IDE primarily because of its superior debugging compared to other IDEs for Windows.
Since version 2.0, pytools provides a native C-debugger (mixed mode debugger or MMD) which is very useful for debugging when utilizing cython or including some native C code, and is also supposed to be much faster than the standard debugger, which makes it feasible to debug computationally expensive code, which would otherwise run too slow with debugging enabled.
Unfortunately the pytools MMD requires debug symbols to work, which are available for the standard python distribution, however they note that
If you're using a third-party Python distribution such as ActiveState Python or Enthought Canopy, you will need to contact the authors of that distribution to provide you with symbols.
I have not been able to find these debug symbols available anywhere from Enthought, so I want to know:
a) Do Enthought plan to make the debug symbols available for pytools users
b) If not, what are some possible workarounds?
Enthought Canopy 1.2, to be released later this month, includes full PTVS integration including debug symbols.