[Idle-dev] Updates to the IDLE Dev Guide

[Terry Reedy]

On 5/9/2015 2:33 PM, Kevin Walzer wrote:
> On 5/9/15 1:56 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:
>> Kevin, it looks like tcl.tk only distributes 8.5 and 8.6.  How long
>> has it been since 8.4 was distributed?  I am wondering how long
>> tkinter should keep code for pre 8.5.
>
> 8.4 was EOL'ed a year or two ago. The last release was (I think) 8.4.20.
>>
>> Also, does 8.6.4 have any new features versus 8.6.0, or just bug
>> fixes, as with Python?
>
> In terms of language design, no new features (an object system and
> coroutines were major features with 8.6.0 in Tcl). The Windows and X11
> versions of Tk have had minor updates  /  bug fixes only, I believe.

The 'minor updates' listed in http://wiki.tcl.tk/21276 are new features 
from a Python perspective.  Tkinter will need to be updated to use some 
of them.

> Because it has never been very stable, the Mac port of Tk has remained
> under heavy development even with minor point releases (Marc Culler,
> developer of the Python scientific visualizer SnapPy, has contributed
> many patches, and I have also done a lot of work). It remains based on
> Cocoa, but a lot of under-the-hood engineering has taken place to firm
> up the event loop and simplify drawing of widgets with a lower-level
> API. These changes will be present in 8.6.5, which I think will be the
> first truly stable version of Tk since it was ported to Cocoa.

Any idea on release?  Py 3.5 should be out in September.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy