[Python-Dev] IDLE development

[Guido van Rossum]

On 9/10/05, Noam Raphael <noamraph at gmail.com> wrote:
> I and my colleges use IDLE intensively - that is, a heavily patched
> IDLE. It includes my patch and many other improvements made by me and
> my friends.
> 
> The improved IDLE is MUCH better than the standard IDLE, especially
> for interactive work.

Could it be that this is a rather subjective judgement? It wouldn't be
the first time that someone pushing for their personal set of
functionality changes is overlooking the needs of other user groups.

> Since we would like to share our work with the
> rest of the world, if nothing is changed we would start a new IDLE
> fork soon, perhaps at python-hosting.com.

I have no problem with this. You might be able to save yourself some
maintenance work by structuring your version as a set of subclasses
rather than a set of patches (even if you distribute it as a complete
working program). Many people have needs that aren't met by standard
Python; they write their own modules or extensions and distribute
these independently from Python; your case probably isn't all that
different.

Often the needs of certain user groups and the development speeds of
such 3rd party modules are so different that it simply doesn't make
sense to fold them in the Python distribution anyway -- consider what
you would have to do if Kurt accepted your patches: you'll still have
to wait until Python 2.5 is released before others can benefit from
your changes, and if you come up with an improvement after that
release, your next chance will be 18 months later...

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)