[Edu-sig] Help Testing IDLD patch

[John Zelle]

Hello all,

A while back, I responded to a post about some IDLE annoyances and said 
I was more concerned about IDLE 1.04's instablility under Windows. I 
have a very simple test that causes IDLE to hang, and it does not appear 
to be fixed in IDLE 1.1. A number of folks who are trying to use Python 
in education have reported frsutration with the situation. So..., I did 
some poking around myself. I do not have a very good understanding of 
the IDLE code, but I think I have found a simple fix for the error I can 
reproduce reliably.

I would appreciate it if some of you who have noticed these problems 
with IDLE would give my patch a try and let me know if it helps out at 
all. I have added a single line to the PyShell.py file that lives in 
Python2.3/lib/idlelib. You can get my modified version here:

http://mcsp.wartburg/edu/zelle/Python/PyShell.py.

You should be able to use this as a drop-in replacement. Alternatively, 
you can search in it for my initials (JMZ) to find the line I added and 
just edit your own copy. Basically, the patch just does the equivalent 
of a keyboard-interrupt (ctrl-c) before closing the shell window.

Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated. A number of schools 
are wondering what they should use for Winter term. It would be a real 
shame if this flaw in IDLE causes Python to lose ground.

--John

ps. With this "fix", killing the IDLE shell window will produce a little 
"chatter" before it goes away. I can live with that.