[Python-Dev] a quit that actually quits

[Guido van Rossum]

On 12/27/05, Fredrik Lundh <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
> but now we're back to today's situation:
>
>     >>> quit
>     'Use Ctrl-Z plus Return to exit.'
>
> which violates the basic "if you know what I mean, why the /!"&/&!//%¤
> don't you do what I say" usability rule.

What nonsense. Every Python programmer knows that the right way to
exit Python is to enter a platform EOF. The quit and exit variables
are compromises for non-programmers who have accidentally entered
Python and who don't know how to get out of it (this is usually the
same category of people who don't know how or don't dare to kill a
program using heavy artillery).

Rather than improving upon the quit/exit functionality a la /F's patch
I'd get rid of the compromise.

Now, for Py3K we could try to come up with a more intelligent
interactive mode. Probably not implemented in C. Perhaps using ideas
from ipython (which I've personally never used). We might provide a
quit or exit command using a more sophisticated mechanism. But there
are always costs (e.g. the violation of the primciple that typing a
name shows its repr()).

In the mean time I'm a strong believer in "it ain't broke so don't fix it" here.

--
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)