[Edu-sig] IDE for GUI development in Python

[David MacQuigg]

At 07:28 PM 8/10/2008 -0700, kirby urner wrote:

>Learning GUI programming fundamentals is best accomplished with a
>straight text editor IMO (vim, scintilla, whatever).

I'll second that.  Learn just a few simple widgets in Tk.  It's not that much typing.  I've also used BlackAdder and Qt (years ago).  BlackAdder was a mess.  Qt has more polish than Tk, but the detail can be overwhelming for students.

Don't forget IDLE, the built-in editor for Python.  Superb!  The only problem is if your GUI uses an event loop, there will be a conflict when you run it from IDLE, which also uses Tk event loops.  Just run your GUI app from a command line instead of the Run command in IDLE, and things should be OK.

>Dragging and dropping widgets from a tools palette is convenient, but
>not the best way to learn GUI programming, as such IDEs tend to
>insulate from the details, not teach them -- why VB in general is not
>a good learning environment, a common mistake many schools make.
>
>John Zelle's book using Tk is a good one.

Good choice.

-- Dave


>2008/8/10 Matt K <matt.kameron at gmail.com>:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm looking at using a GUI IDE for helping my high school students to learn
>> GUI programming. The kind of interface which Visual Basic offers... but in
>> Python.
>>
>> I've found Blackadder so far, but its not free (or finished!) Do any of you
>> have any (ideally free) suggestions?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
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