[Idle-dev] DS_RPC_BRANCH

[Kurt B. Kaiser]

"Bruce Sherwood" <basherwo@unity.ncsu.edu> writes:

> Since my name appears in this note, I'll say that I'm certainly very
> interested in bundling a spiffy new version of IDLE with VPython. I've been
> consumed with a move from Carnegie Mellon to North Carolina State
> University, so I haven't attempted to run a recent version of idlefork, due
> to my (mis?)perception that there really has never been something one might
> call a "release". Once there is such a thing, I'll certainly try it myself
> and consult with you developers on whether it's ready for prime time with
> novice freshmen in a physics course.

I was hoping you would pop up! 

As you're aware, recently I've been converting the code to use Guido's
RPC.  A major reason for doing that instead of further developing
David Scherer's RPC was that the GvR code implemented a split version
of the Idle debugger and allowed inspection of the environment in a
Python shell following a Run.

>From the user's point of view, the main difference is the output of a Run 
appears in a shell window instead of in a separate output window.  

But as in VP Idle, a fresh environment is created every time Run/F5 is
activated.

Steven Gava has been working hard over the past year to improve the
configurability of VP Idle.  The results of his work are in the
DS_RPC_BRANCH, and also in the MAIN branch.

The first question is, are you interested in a final release of the VP
Idle line of development so you can make use of that work?

Another question: at what point might you jump to the new GRPC
version?  What would we need to do to make it attractive to you?

Are you comfortable downloading from cvs or should we package up
releases for you?

Regards, KBK