[Python-Dev] IDLE development (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Sun Sep 11 04:11:05 CEST 2005

On 9/10/05, Noam Raphael <noamraph at gmail.com> wrote:

I and my colleges use IDLE intensively - that is, a heavily patched IDLE. It includes my patch and many other improvements made by me and my friends.

The improved IDLE is MUCH better than the standard IDLE, especially for interactive work.

Could it be that this is a rather subjective judgement? It wouldn't be the first time that someone pushing for their personal set of functionality changes is overlooking the needs of other user groups.

Since we would like to share our work with the rest of the world, if nothing is changed we would start a new IDLE fork soon, perhaps at python-hosting.com.

I have no problem with this. You might be able to save yourself some maintenance work by structuring your version as a set of subclasses rather than a set of patches (even if you distribute it as a complete working program). Many people have needs that aren't met by standard Python; they write their own modules or extensions and distribute these independently from Python; your case probably isn't all that different.

Often the needs of certain user groups and the development speeds of such 3rd party modules are so different that it simply doesn't make sense to fold them in the Python distribution anyway -- consider what you would have to do if Kurt accepted your patches: you'll still have to wait until Python 2.5 is released before others can benefit from your changes, and if you come up with an improvement after that release, your next chance will be 18 months later...

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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