[Python-Dev] [Idle-dev] Removing IDLE from the standard library

[Beni Cherniavsky-Paskin]

On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 18:20, Tal Einat <taleinat at gmail.com> wrote:

> The (hopefully) compelling arguments were others, such as the sentence
> following the one you quoted:
>
> "I think that in its current state, IDLE may still be helpful for
> learning Python, but it is more likely to drive away users who run
> into its various quirks and problems."
>
> Having taught a few Python courses myself, I must say that while not
perfect [I had to apologize for some IDLE issues, which shamed me into
filing bugs/patches for some of them], it is *better* for interactive use
than most other IDEs!
That's IMHO the #1 is the real reason that makes it ideal for teaching, not
the fact that it's bundled with Python.
I wouldn't mind telling people "install Python and X" instead of "install
Python", but very few Python environments do multiline history correctly
:-(.

The only one I know that beats IDLE is Dreampie (designed by Noam Raphael, a
long time IDLE contributor).
However, without an editor and F5 it's not a winner for teaching.

For the record, I'm -42 on removing IDLE from the distribution (unless you
have a better replacement?),
but +1 on widening commit access and setting up one obvious way for users to
try bleeding-edge IDLE.
-0 on extracting it from the stdlib (it's one way to implement the above,
not sure if best way).

But here's a thought: why not make IDLE an early adopter of Mercurial?
It seems to me that could ease a lot of the issues:
 - contributors will be able to publish their changes without waiting for
official commiters
 - contributors will be able to maintain "beefed up" IDLE branches with much
less pain
 - trying out bleeding-edge branches would be much simpler
 - I expect a de-facto "stable" IDLE branch will emerge from the community

-- 
Beni Cherniavsky-Paskin <cben at users.sf.net>
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