[Python-Dev] Removing IDLE from the standard library (original) (raw)

John Nagle nagle at animats.com
Tue Jul 13 18:44:20 CEST 2010

On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 18:20, Tal Einat <taleinat at gmail.com> wrote:

The (hopefully) compelling arguments were others, such as the sentence following the one you quoted:

"I think that in its current state, IDLE may still be helpful for learning Python, but it is more likely to drive away users who run into its various quirks and problems."

The underlying problem is that, given the way Python is currently

maintained, there are only two options: 1) part of the main Python distribution and synchronized with it, and 2) supported (or not) by some third party who may or may not produce a working version in sync with what the Python distribution is doing. There's no intermediate tier, like "Python extras", with a code base under common source control and some quality control. (PyPi is mostly a link farm to projects elsewhere, not a source repository.)

IDLE belongs in such an intermediate tier.  There are no

dependencies on IDLE. Nothing will stop working because a version of IDLE isn't available. There are a reasonable number of modules not in the Python distribution that are more mission-critical to large numbers of users than IDLE. IDLE is useful, but not critical. Given limited resources, it's necessary to cut back in some areas.

I'd vote IDLE off the island.

            John Nagle

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