I recently got a Raspberry Pi for use with a college project, I'm fairly well versed coding Python but not with Raspberry Pi's unfortunately. What's the best compiler for Raspberry Pi app creation? What I need it to do is connect with a database and another application I have developed for Android. Is it possible to do this? Or am i better to program it on my PC and FTP the files across?
One thing to watch out for on the Raspberrry Pi is memory usage.  I tend to have lots of browser tabs, terminal windows, etc. running.  Pi gets very unhappy (i.e. slows to crawl) when it runs low on memory.  Even a long scroll-back on Idle can do it (e.g., logging lots to the shell)
I put the resource monitors on the top right of the task bar - memory usage shows in red.  As it approaches the top, it's time to close some things!
Right-click on task bar, select "Add / Remove Panel Items", "Panel Applets", "Add", scroll down to "Resource Monitors", select and "Add".  It defaults to showing CPU, so click "Preferences" and click "Display RAM usage", "OK", "OK"
Programming Python on a Raspberry Pi