[Idle-dev] Big change to IDLE Shell

[Terry Reedy]

On 5/13/2021 4:22 PM, Alan Gauld via IDLE-dev wrote:
> On 28/04/2021 07:52, Terry Reedy wrote:
>> 3.10.0b1 is due to be released next Monday.  The big change for IDLE is
>> in the Shell.  The first line of entered statement will line up with
>> continuation lines and indents will be spaces instead of tabs.
> 
> Great news, that will eliminate a whole category of problems
> we see on the tutor list with IDLE.

Could you summarize your experience here with a post on
"Beginner problems with IDLE"?

I follow the python-idle tag on SO (and answer questions there) and a 
few fixes have come from that experience.  A couple had never been 
mentioned on the bugs.python.org tracker.  One issue resulted in 4 
independent questions. *That* made it a priority.

What else is still an issue?  Things that bug me are a priority, but 
things that bug multiple beginners follow closely.

Given that there has be and maybe will be more opposition to this 
change, another authoritative statement on the bpo issue(s) that this 
will help beginners would have been and might in the future be a help.

Do you ever refer people to the IDLE doc, accessible as Help => IDLE 
Help?  (I will soon change the menu item to IDLE Doc, as it now is a 
copy of the doc chapter.)

> PS. Sorry I'm late to the party, I only check this list
> once a month or so...
> 
>> to 3.9 (maybe in late June).  The last maintenance release of 3.8 is
>> also next Monday, so it will never get this patch.
> 
> Pity, I'm still on 3.8... This might be sufficient reason
> to upgrade to 3.9...

I will announce here when this is backported to 3.9.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy