[Idle-dev] Guilherme Polo changes lost?

[Bruce Sherwood]

In a conversation with Terry Reedy, it became evident that I need to
explain the issue of lost capabilities less cryptically. There are several
different issues.

(1) Ruth Chabay and I have had the opportunity to watch very large numbers
of students using VPython in our intro physics curriculum. These
engineering and science students come to our course with no previous
experience with programming. With IDLE it was common for them to be quite
confused and puzzled when their program stopped, simply because their
(overly?) large edit window covered up the shell window where the error was
displayed. Polo implemented a change that brings the shell window forward
when there is an error message, in front of other windows. This is
important.

(2) Entering statements interactively in the shell encourages
experimentation. The same experimentation should be available for running
whole programs, but in IDLE this is awkward because of the requirement to
save the file somewhere before running. Polo implemented changes that let
you configure IDLE so that you can start the editor, type a short program,
and press F5 to run it without the interruption of having to decide where
to save the file. If you have not experienced this, you might object that
it's no big deal to have to save the file first, but in fact it is a
surprisingly big deal because it breaks the flow of your thought. Think
about the annoyance there would be if in the shell after entering a
statement you were told that you had to save the file somewhere.

In Polo's implementation, there are three "Run (F5) Preferences" that
replace the "Autosave Preferences" in IDLE:

If file has never been saved: Prompt to Save or No prompt
If file has been saved before: Prompt to Save or No prompt (this is
equivalent to current IDLE)
On first error: Bring shell forward or Do nothing

If you choose both No prompt options and experiment with a new (temporary)
file, upon exit you are warned that the file has never been saved and
offered the option to save at that point if you wish.

One can argue over what the default settings should be, though presumably
one default is noncontroversial, namely that an error should bring the
shell forward.

Bruce


On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 2:14 PM, Bruce Sherwood <Bruce_Sherwood at ncsu.edu>wrote:

>
> Terry Reedy made this comment on part of my recent testing:
>
> > There were no detailed options for Run options
>
>> introduced by Guilleherme Polo (If file has never been saved, Prompt to
>> Save or No prompt; If file has been saved before Prompt to Save or no
>> prompt; On first error Bring shell forward or Do nothing).
>>
>
> I do not know what this is about. I presume you are talking about a
> proposed patch that has not been applied here. I do not remember seeing it.
> I looked for an issue but could not find one.
>
> -----------------------------
>
> This is very worrisome, as these important features were part of what
> Guilherme Polo created in his Google Summer of Code project in 2009, and
> among the important reasons why I still feel it necessary to bundle VIDLE
> with VPython. I'm copying Guilherme in the hope that he can shed light on
> this.
>
> Bruce
>
>
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