[Python-Dev] IDLE in the stdlib (original) (raw)

Xavier Morel python-dev at masklinn.net
Wed Mar 20 21:59:58 CET 2013

On 2013-03-20, at 21:14 , Eli Bendersky wrote:

Agreed that the "sync into stdlib" think should not happen, or should at

best be a temporary measure until we can remove idle from the source tarball (maybe at the 3.4 release, otherwise at 3.5).

Right. Ultimately, I think IDLE should be a separate project entirely, but I guess there's push back against that too. The problem with it is, well, that it's a separate project so unless it is still packaged in (in which case it's not quite separate project, just a separate source tree) it's got to be downloaded and installed separately. That would be a blow to educators, but also Windows users: while the CLI works very nicely in unices, that's not the case with the win32 console which is as best as I can describe it a complete turd, making IDLE a very nice proposition there (I never use IDLE on Linux or OSX, but do all the time in Windows). It also provides a rather capable (and in many case sufficient) code editor for a platform which lacks any form of native text editor allowing sane edition of code. Installing the Python windows packages and having everything "work" (in the sense that you can immediately start writing and running python code) is — I think — a pretty big feature. Oh, and another thing. If a Windows user wants a good Python shell, IDLE should be his last choice. There's Spyder, there's IPython, there's probably a bunch of others I'm not aware of.

Sure, there are plenty of tools for the experienced python developer with reasons to invest time in a windows development setup, but IDLE provides an acceptable low-cost and low-investment base which is there: it does not require spending a day downloading, trying out and getting familiar with a dozen different Python IDEs, it's simple and for the most part it works.

I view it as an mg, not an emacs, if you see what I mean.

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list