[Pythonmac-SIG] IDEs, debugging, and wxPython

Jack Jansen Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl
Fri Oct 22 10:37:19 CEST 2004


On 22-okt-04, at 3:30, Charles Hartman wrote:
> What I can't find is a GUI-based debugger integrated with an editor. 
> Call me a wuss, but I don't want to do command-line debugging of GUI 
> apps when I can help it. All I need is to be able to watch a few 
> variables, set the occasional breakpoint, and so on. Xcode assumes I 
> want to write a Cocoa app; PyOXIDE's debugger crashes on me; telling 
> PythonCard to run the app with a Debug menu does nothing (gets 
> overriden by my own app's menus?); IDLE wants TKinter which I don't 
> use; and so on, and so on.

The problem with the debuggers in the current IDEs is that you cannot 
use them to debug GUI applications that use a different GUI toolkit. 
The reason for this is that the various GUI toolkits don't work 
together very well (if at all), so they'll be getting into a fight over 
who owns what window, which redraw requests get sent where, and so on.

The one exception may be Idle, which can debug in a separate process, 
so it should theoretically be possible to debug a wxPython script with 
Idle. But: I don't know of anyone who tried this. So if you do please 
report back your findings.
--
Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman



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