[Edu-sig] creating an interface vs. using one (Michel Paul)

[kirby urner]

On 9/23/06, Arthur <ajsiegel at optonline.net> wrote:

> If I had a leadership role in the Python community I would be attempting
> to direct energies toward overcoming the(very real) issues related to
> making something very much like VPython part of the standard distribution.

So you're saying not VPython itself, but something like, even very
much like.  Coded in C++ again or what?  You gotta plan, Mr. Leader?

> Its utility is general enough, its footprint small enough, and its
> spirit as a visual extension to Python on point enough - that the effort
> would IMO be well worth it.  I know Dethe has made some discouraging

Worth what?  Joining the graveyard of hardly anyone cares Library
modules.  Just kidding, a lot of it's useful.   Every core needs an
immediate heap, a junkyward if you will, with which to demonstrate the
awesome powers of import.

Beyond that, maybe Tim (the W3 Tim) is right:  import should have some
syntax like import http://4dsolutions.net/rbf.py, so you could just
run 'em off the Internet.

> efforts.  And perhaps more radical surgery than Dethe has tried to
> undertake is necessary to make it adequately crossplatform. But in the
> scheme of levels of difficulty, and with the resources available to the
> community, I can't believe this is not doable - were some sense of
> importance attached to it.
>
> Consider - even Kirby begins to understand its potential.. ;)
>
>
> Art

I think I got it about VPython the moment I started using it (though
I've come to appreciate it more over time, what with the stereo view
option and all).

Took me a lot longer to get over my bias against Pygeo (I didn't like
that you'd hijacked and hacked an IDLE, but that's changed).  If
Python were basic infrastructure in schools, more'd have looked into
it by now.  But if course it isn't.  TIs are.

What I don't get is this mystical fascination some people have with
the Standard Library.  It becomes some kind of Quest to get one's
little module blessed by Guido and inducted into this particular
python.org motherlode (have some pity on 56Kers will ya?).

Some of the best Python add-ons have been, are, and will be, not in
the Standard Library.  So what?

Kirby