IDLE is not as interactive as Maple

[Benjamin Kaplan]

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 11:22 PM, laser<laser.yuan at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the future, will Python provide programe enviroment like Maple
> does? In Maple, you can remove anything unneeded in the editor. And
> the code execution order are not necessary in one direction. You can
> run any command line on the screen by
> push Enter key. These functions gave a lot of flaxibility for users to
> start with programming something.
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>

Maple is a very expensive IDE that happens to have a language that
goes with it. Python is a language that happens to come with a free
text editor/integrated shell. For languages like Mathematica and
Maple, the IDE is everything- you almost never use the language
without the integrated IDE. Python focuses more on language features.
IDLE is not supposed to be a great editor on the level of Visual
Studio or Maple, it's supposed to be a convenient way to run your code
for people who are scared of the command line. I would venture a guess
that very few people on this list use IDLE for their coding. Based on
previous answers to questions, most people use Eclipse/PyDev,
Netbeans, Wing, Komodo, emacs, and vim. Wing and Komodo are the only
Python-specific IDEs on that list and neither of them are free (though
the have stripped-down free versions). If you want a better editor,
use one of those.