[Tutor] Re: [Edu-sig] RE: [Idle-dev] IDLE's save-before-runrequirement

[Kirby Urner]

>
>What do others think? I hope I've not gotten on a soapbox and babbled here.
>I do have a tendency to do that on occasion... <AHEM!> I'm actually new to
>all this open-source, mailing list stuff so if I'm breaking etiquette rules
>or something feel free to tell me! ^_^;
>
>Thanks for listening!
>
>Kevin Ollivier

I've always thought IDLE was 98% of what's needed.  I like these
widgets in other IDEs that prompt you with all the possible
class methods when you go >>> foo. -- but that's a bell I can
live without.

When it comes to teaching in the classroom, I think IDLE is a
fantastic tool -- as is.  Except it doesn't work on the Mac.
But maybe MacPython fills that void (wish wish).

The major shortcoming of IDLE seems to be that it doesn't do
the Tk stuff in a separate thread, so you quit IDLE when you
quit the Tkinter program you're working on.  So maybe that's
what Guido is talking about re running IDLE as a subprocess --
adding that before opening IDLE development to a larger group.

As another poster pointed out, a lot of the GUI-development
seems to be moving towards XML-based descriptions -- much as
HTML is used to spec out interactive forms, only x100 in power.
Perhaps GUI development is too much in flux across the board
to try hammering down some cross-platform "one right way" at
this point.  There will be more shake-outs down the road.

The main thing I like about IDLE is you can import modules in
shell mode and interact with them in a conversational manner.
You can have a lot of persistent handles to your objects, which
you can play with -- literally.

Basically, the user's mind becomes main(), the outer loop, and
you've got persistence for the duration of the session.

This is way different from just using an editor, where you have
to have all your ducks in a row up front, before you commit
the script to the interpreter.

I like the free form scratch pad feel of IDLE work, which makes
it feel a lot like an OS.

I think of the GUIs as various idioms in the toolbox -- like
that Glade stuff for Gnome (with which I have no personal experience
as yet).

Kirby