Question: I've been searching everywhere for an answer to this but to no avail. I want to be able to run my code and have the variables stored in memory so that I can perhaps set a "checkpoint" which I can run from in the future. The reason is that I have a fairly expensive function that takes some time to compute (as well as user input) and it would be nice if I didn't have to wait for it to finish every time I run after I change something downstream.

I'm sure a feature like this exists in PyCharm but I have no idea what it's called and the documentation isn't very clear to me at my level of experience. It would save me a lot of time if someone could point me in the right direction.

Answer: 
Turns out this is (more or less) possible by using the PyCharm console. I guess I should have realized this earlier because it seems so simple now (though I've never used a console in my life so I guess I should learn).

Anyway, the console lets you run blocks of your code presuming the required variables, functions, libraries, etc... have been specified beforehand. You can actually highlight a block of your code in the PyCharm editor, right click and select "Run in console" to execute it.
This feature is not implement in Pycharm ([see pycharm forum](https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/205816639-Access-python-console-and-program-variables-after-program-finished-running-?sort_by=votes)) but seems implemented in Spyder.