[Alex Martelli]
Just helped some people on the Italian Python mailing list find some indispensable tool (Tools/i18n/pygettext.py, in this specific case) and they expressed astonishment that the tool isn't in the standard Windows binary distribution, which was all they had downloaded. This set me to wondering -- is there any reason why this and other tools &c should NOT be included in that binary? Could we add them in 2.2.2 and later releases?
Last time this came up, Guido was opposed to it. The problem is that the majority of Python Windows users aren't particularly clueful, and the Demo and Tools directories are loaded with stuff that's not maintained, not documented, platform-dependent, and may not even work anymore. This all conspires to give it a "developers only" status. Repeated calls for volunteers to clean this up (i.e., document it, fix it, clean out the crap) went unanswered. I've been been known to respond to requests to include specific pieces in the Windows distro, though (for example, IDLE and pynche). This is a PITA because it requires custom WISE scripting for each one, so someone has to convince me they really, really want a piece first.