Python Learning
Terry Reedy
tjreedy at udel.edu
Sat Dec 16 16:09:06 EST 2017
On 12/16/2017 8:26 AM, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> Unfortunately, Python's indentation mechanism makes the REPL too
> frustrating an environment to type in even the simplest of function
> definitions, let alone a whole class.
The fundamental problem is that most REPLs are for 'command lines', and
Python does not have 'command lines'. It has statements. A statement
may consist of a single line, and if simple, it looks and acts like a
command line. But a statement may also be multiple lines. Even without
indentation, a single-line editing and history mechanism is a poor fit
to a multiline statement language.
IDLE has a shell built for Python and Python only. One enters, edits,
and retrieves complete statements. Indentation is automatic. There is
currently a glitch in that Shell indents with tabs instead of spaces,
but I want to change that and know of two ways to do so.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
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