[Edu-sig] Getting it going

[Gerrit Holl]

Hello,

Guido van Rossum wrote on 949654658:
> > No, we want to extent idle. One patch I want to write is that
> > "if a:" autoindents, "if a: # if it's true" does not. I can't find where
> > to change it, and that's one thing Guido pointed out: tools would make
> > that easier. Especially (how do you spell that word?) for kids. But I
> > don't think new tools would be needed for that: idle could be extended
> > and promoted.
> 
> Note that that particular change is already in the CVS tree for IDLE
> (python.org/download/cvs.html).

Ah!
I think it would be useful to distribute Idle seperate from Python as well
as included: why wait for Python 1.6 releasing such changes to the big
public? Or does Idle already rely on string methods?

> I've also found at the conference that there are already at least half
> a dozen serious IDEs (interactive development environments) for Python
> in existence or under development.  I still want to continue to use
> IDLE to experiment with some advanced features (such as syntax
> checking while you type), but I think it's important that the
> classroom materials allow the choice of different IDEs -- if only
> because not all IDEs work on all platforms, and we do need to support
> Windows, Mac and Linux!

Unfortunately, yes. Alice isn't crossplatform, is it?

But what does any other IDE have what Idle does not have? Idle is
crossplatform, isn't it?

regards,
Gerrit.