[snip]
My standard Windows 3.0.1 installation has Tools without the source tree. It has 5 directories, including Scripts/, which has about 50 .py files, including 2to3. If *that* can go there, I see no reason why a syntax checker could not also.
AFAIK, and if some form of lint gets blessed by incorporation into Python, then it needs to be available for all standard installs. Regardless, the stdlib is for modules to import, tools for programs that run.
We blur that line all the time though (cf. timeit, pdb, pydoc, webbrowser, runpy, probably others).
So I'd agree with Aahz that if python-dev is going to bless something along these lines, it should be something worthy of inclusion in the standard lib itself rather than just being dropped into the Tools directory.
timit, pdb, webbrowser, amd runpy are importable modules that *also* have a command-line interface via "if __name__ == '__main__': ...". Pydoc might be also, but I could not be sure from the doc. If the checker were written similarly, so that it could be imported and used from within a program to check another file, then I would agree that stdlib would be a place for it.
tjr
[snip] Skipping over some of the wrangling about where it goes for a minute, is there any firm consensus on which tool to put in? I've only heard back from pylint, and there seems to be a general feeling that that's the strictest (and therefore best), but that its external dependencies constitute a liability. Does anybody have a firm objection on that score? Geremy Condra