[Python-Dev] IDLE in the stdlib

[Mark Janssen]

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 8:32 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

> On 3/20/2013 12:41 PM, Eli Bendersky wrote:
>
>  Personally, I think that IDLE reflects badly on Python in more ways than
>> one. It's badly maintained, quirky and ugly.
>>
>
> Ugly is subjective: by what standard and compared to what?
>

I might be jumping in late here, but...

The *only* thing I find "ugly" about it is that it doesn't have a
white-on-black color scheme.  Look at any hacker console and you won't find
a white screen.  Otherwise its fine.  Fixing that issue is simple, I can
upload my color scheme if anyone wants.

> It serves a very narrow set of uses,
>
> IDLE serves a very important "narrow use" purpose -- helping the plethora
of beginning programmers.  Anyone who wants to criticize it can slap
themselves.  Python attracts many beginners, and if you don't remember,
installing a separate "fancy" editor was never on the priority list until
several years later.  Give me a break.


> > and does it badly.
>
> Come on.  It gets even a strong programmer 80% of the way to what he/she
needs.

And in any case, I think the interpreter environment is the place to keep
the programmer's focus.  That is the arena where the community has been and
it's what has kept programming in Python fun.  And although this goes
against decades(?) of programming history, the future of programming, is
not in the editor.  The "editor-centric paradigm" has not created a
community of re-usable code, despite all the promises.

I'll argue that the *interpreter environment* will be the future and the
editor will be relegated to a simple memory-saving device.

Mark
Tacoma, Washington
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20130321/32c614f7/attachment.html>