[Idle-dev] Intentions?

[Guido van Rossum]

> These are basically questions for Guido: May I ask what are expectations 
> and intentions for idlefork? How/when will a decision be made whether to 
> package idlefork rather than the current idle in future distributions of 
> Python (assuming as I understand it that this is the goal of the idlefork 
> project)? Is there some criterion of goodness to be reached? How will we 
> know when it is "ready"?

I believe Stephen is still working on the configuration dialogs.

I an also hoping that the interactive shell window will be changed to
use the subprocess execution mode that is now being used for "run".
I don't particularly care whether that will use my rpc module or
Sherer's, as long as it works.

I also want the debugger to work -- both with the shell and with "run
script mode.

Finally, I still don't like that it now comes up with a blank script
window instead of with a shell window by default.  We've discussed
this before and I don't expect we'll be able to convince each other,
so I propose to make this a configurable default.  The version that
comes with standard Python will come with the Python shell window by
default.

> My own experience suggests that idlefork is in very good shape. And
> its foundation, the original version due to Scherer, has been beaten
> on for a year and a half by lots of physics students, without
> problems (other than the installation path bugs recently fixed). But
> I only use a fraction of all its capabilities, and the students use
> an even smaller fraction, so this isn't a full test. How do others
> feel about their own use of idlefork?

I'd love to hear experiences from other folks.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)