[Edu-sig] IDLE wish (was Edu-sig Digest, Vol 31, Issue 16)

[Andre Roberge]

On 3/6/06, Vern Ceder <vceder at canterburyschool.org> wrote:
> I agree, actually. I would say it's just one of IDLE's shortcomings, but
> I've noticed it as well. This lack of ability to run a script with
> parameters makes IDLE much less useful for intermediate programmers as
> well. Add to that IDLE's general quirkiness (esp. on Windows), a few
> stray bugs, and it is definitely not helping the cause.

Sorry if my reply is starting to stray from the original topic.
Not too long ago I wrote a little app (named "Lightning Compiler") that
is meant to provide a nice, albeit limited, environment to play with scripts.
It comes with a very simple editor and an interpreter window.  It does
have the ability (implemented just for fun, never tested seriously) to
run scripts
with parameters.  I released it publicly (and provided a recipe for the online
Python Cookbook) as it had a feature (handling of input and raw_input) that
took me a while to figure out, and wanted to save others the trouble.  I got
more feedback on Lightning Compiler in a couple of weeks than I did on
rur-ple in about a year an a half!!
It might be useful for teachers in a classroom situation.  It is available
from rur-ple's sourceforge page:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=125834

On the down side, it does require wxPython which is not an "included battery"!

André
>
> Vern
>