[Idle-dev] IDLE "shell" (was: IDLE interpreter window)

[Tony J Ibbs (Tibs)]

Various people have been commenting on whether the IDLE shell is a "natural"
interface or not, and comparing it with other similar beasts (notably the
shell interface in [X]Emacs).

I must admit that, although I've been using [X]Emacs for some while now
(um - since Emacs on VMS in the early 1980s), I've never gotten sufficiently
comfortable with the way that it handles its shell window to actually *use*
the thing. I find the IDLE/PythonWin/[X]Emacs shell window paradigms
confusing - they don't seem to me to be one thing or t'other.

What do I expect? Perhaps something closer to the model found on the old
Apollo "not-quite-Unix" boxes. The console/shell/call-it-what-you-will
window had a line at the bottom which was where you were typing. This was
separated by a thin line from the rest of the window above it, which was the
"history" - everything that was readonly, so stuff you had typed and system
responses to it (obviously, a prompt had to be dealt with differently, and I
assume it would have gone into the "typing" line - this *is* a good while
ago). Typeahead worked, but I can't remember if you saw it (which would have
meant potentially increasing the number of lines shown in the typing area).

If you wanted an old line, you copied it with the normal editing mechanisms
for copying (there was a built in editor, and the "history" area was akin to
a text file - in fact, since the system actually kept a log of your session
for you, it probably *was* just a text file! presumably in readonly mode)
down into the "typing" line.

So, in brief, one area for input and the rest for "stuff I've done/stuff
that has happened".

I find the IDLE/etc. model confusing because it intertwingles these two
ideas. I can never remember quite what is going to happen if I move the
cursor up (hmm - no, it doesn't scroll stuff in my bottom line - oh dear, so
it's not like my "normal" shell - but it is *labelled* as a shell), whether
it matters if I'm at the end of a line when I hit "return", what happens if
I try to edit a line in my past history (!!! what a concept !!!) and then
hit return, and so on. I can't remember if you can do that last in IDLE, but
it can be a major confusion in [X]Emacs - the past is no longer what it was!

Sorry for the long post - does that make any sense?

(BTW: regardless, IDLE and PythonWin are seriously neat, and I *especially*
love having my interactive session stuff colourised)

Tibs
--
Tony J Ibbs (Tibs)      http://www.tibsnjoan.demon.co.uk/
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