An aside on tool interactions: For the past year or so I've been using a new way to do syntax highlighting[1][2] that works really well for highlighting the dataflow in large functions (whether well or poorly written): http://i.imgur.com/EmFMTtv.png
I've seen a plugin to some ide, can't remember if it was eclipse or pycharm, that would highlight the last three variables you had selected. Similar to what most editors do with the current variable under cursor but with a short memory.
[1] https://medium.com/@evnbr/coding-in-color-3a6db2743a1e
[2] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1w76um/coding_i...