[Idle-dev] IDLE in UK Schools

[Guido van Rossum]

I am not interested in this discussion. You all can do what you want.

On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 11:30 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

> On 8/5/2015 5:55 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 4:43 AM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu
>> <mailto:tjreedy at udel.edu>> wrote:
>>
>>     As a user of Idle for several years, and not a beginner, I disagree
>>     with 'only'.  That aside, I consider it unnecessary and diversionary
>>     from the numerous known issues that will benefit *everyone*.
>>
>
> The core of this comment is "unnecessary and diversionary ...".
>
> As for 'unnecessary', what does adding 'only' add to the discussion? Does
> that mean that we should reject features that also benefit non-beginners?
> If not, what does it mean?  What extra design guidance does it add?
>
> As for 'divisionary', see, besides the above, my questions that follow the
> 'PyCharm' quote.
>
> Please note that I volunteer my time to improve Idle *because* it is
> primarily used by students and secondarily, perhaps, by others who are not
> professional programmers.
>
> I was worried that you'd respond like this. *No* change to IDLE will
>> benefit *everyone*,
>>
>
> Please give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that I am saying
> something sensible. By 'everyone', I mean "everyone who uses Idle" and in
> relation to a particular issue, 'everyone who use the feature in question'
> and in relation of OS-specific issues, 'everyone using that OS'.  With
> those meanings, my statement is reasonably true.
>
> > for the simple reason that few people outside the
> > (non-higher) educational field use it.
>
> Bruce already covered colleges.
>
> There are also post-beginners, but not professional programmers, like my
> daughter, who are so far happy with Idle and do not yet need the advanced
> features of other Python shells.
>
> And there are Windows users.  Windows Command Prompt is awful. Interactive
> Python in Command Prompt suffers its sins. I believe most Windows users who
> try Idle Shell find it to be a better experience. One of the other core
> devs once (blushingly) admitted on pydev to using Shell on Windows for this
> reason.
>
> > IDLE should not try to compete with things like PyCharm ...
>
> What does this mean in terms of Idle design decisions?  Can you give me
> examples of what you think should not be added?
>
> You and Kurt each have twice given general advice that Idle should be kept
> 'simple' and not have 'advanced' features added.  But I have trouble
> turning that general advice into concrete decision making.  Are there any
> enhancement requests on the tracker you would reject as too complex or
> advanced?  (To make checking easy, I can send or post a complete,
> categorized list.)
>
> A couple of the features at the end of Al's list strike me as the sort of
> things you are saying not to do in the advice above.  Do you agree?
>
> In particular, consider post-installation switchable multiple language
> support. That would, in general, be of most benefit to the youngest
> beginners.  It is also a rare and rather advanced feature, and complex not
> only in terms of the programming, but in the need for coordination with an
> internationalization group separate from Idle maintainers themselves.
> Should we avoid competing with more advanced programs and leave this out?
>
> > , nor with the Emacs/Vim world (and I consider most every text editor >
> professional coders like to use these days on Linux/Mac/Windows to be > in
> that world, from Sublime Text to Atom).
>
> Notepad++ had been recommend as a multiple (50) programming language
> editor for Windows on python-list.  I have also seen it mentioned on
> Stackoverflow.
>
> > IDLE's one redeeming feature is that it's bundled with Python,
>
> As installed, Idle
> 1. Colorizes Python code
> 2. Converts \t to '    '
> 3. Saves in utf-8 (3.x)
> 4. Checks syntax before running and marks the location of error in the
> editor
> 5. Runs the file in -i mode
> 6. Displays tracebacks and print output in a window with normal cut and
> paste
> 7. and can jump to the error line of any file in tracebacks
> 8. ...
>
> As installed, Notepad++ does 1.  With some searching through the extensive
> settings menus, one of which is not obvious, it can do 2, 3, and 5. By
> running in Idle or another external, installed program instead of command
> prompt, it can get 6.  As far as I know, it can never do 4, or 7 in the
> sense of jumping back to Notepad++.  With respect to this 7 points, Idle is
> the better choice for developing Idle programs.
>
> I presume that some of the other programs you mention match Idle in
> features 4 and 7, which I find *very* useful. But I think you have an
> overly narrow view of the virtues of the program you help create ;-).
>
> And to repeat, Idle makes the interactive mode of Python, as installed, a
> joy rather than barely tolerable. If it were removed, another replacement
> for command prompt should be found.
>
>
> --
> Terry Jan Reedy
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> IDLE-dev mailing list
> IDLE-dev at python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/idle-dev
>



-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/idle-dev/attachments/20150806/84bf6554/attachment.html>