IDLE: A cornicopia of mediocrity and obfuscation.

[Terry Reedy]

On 2/1/2011 12:13 AM, rantingrick wrote:
> On Jan 31, 4:17 pm, Kevin Walzer<k... at codebykevin.com>  wrote:
>> Rick,

> Yes. IDLE is first and foremost a tool to get work done. However we
> should not ignore the fact that IDLE could also be a great learning
> resource for Tkinter GUI's and other subjects. Why not clean up the
> code base? We could start small. First, move the custom widgets like
> textView, Tabbedpages, FindDialog, ReplaceDialog, and TreeWidget into
> the lib-tk for others to use more freely. Then we can modify the
> "event robbers" CallTips, ParenMatch, and ColorDelegator.

Perhaps, after the repository moves from svn to hg, some 'we' will. 
Maybe by then, you will have had your fun and be ready to work. Maybe 
Kevin would help a bit.

Such a project would be carried out on the tracker and idle-sig mailing 
list. Normal decorum would be required -- no ranting or insulting. The 
first thing to do, in my opinion, is to review existing patches on the 
tracker.

> Well some changes and improvements can be made to the UI as well.

There is patch on the tracker, by G. Polo, as I remember, to replace tk 
widgets with the newer themed ttk widgets. It needs to be reviewed and 
tested. To make a big change (or proceed with any refactoring) better 
automated testing would be very useful.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy