[Python-Dev] IDLE in the stdlib

[R. David Murray]

On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:41:53 -0700, Eli Bendersky <eliben at gmail.com> wrote:
> Personally, I think that IDLE reflects badly on Python in more ways than
> one. It's badly maintained, quirky and ugly. It serves a very narrow set of
> uses, and does it badly.
> 
> Being part of Python *distributions* and being part of core Python standard
> library are two different things. The former may make sense, the latter
> IMHO makes no sense whatsoever. Outside the Python core IDLE can be
> maintained more freely, with less restrictions on contributors and
> hopefully become a better tool.

On the other hand, after several years of almost complete neglect,
we have some people interested in and actively contributing to making
it better *in the stdib*.  Terry has proposed a PEP for allowing it
to see more rapid changes than a "normal" stdlib package, and I haven't
perceived a lot of opposition to this.  I think Terry's PEP represents
less of change to how we do things than bundling an externally maintained
IDLE would be, especially with respect to Linux.

FYI I talked to someone at PyCon who is not a current contributor to
IDLE but who is very interested in helping with it, and it sounded like
he had the backing of his organization to do this (it was a quick hall
conversation and unfortunately I did not get his name).  So we may be
approaching an inflection point where IDLE will start getting the love
that it needs.

That said, there is something important in the argument that more
contributors could be attracted to an external project.  I'm wondering,
however, if this is more a reflection of a general issue we might want to
look at, than anything specific to IDLE.  Python is a growing project,
and it may be time to start thinking about better ways to encourage
and coordinate more contributions to various pieces of Python and its
standard library.  But that is a much bigger conversation.

--David