I tried to improve IDLE for a little while and I believe the main problem is tk. It's a source of a lot of bugs and some weird behavior.
On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 9:40 PM, phil jones <inters...@gmail.com> wrote: > Just putting a couple of thoughts / questions out to the community here : > > The impression I get about IDLE is that it's a bit of an > embarrassment. (Possibly because of tk). Everyone accepts it's > substandard. But no-one seems to want it to grow into something else > (eg. a full IDE, something more like PythonCard / VisualBasic / > Processing). Maybe IDLE is deprecated and the hope is it will die > quietly. But if that IS the plan, then it would be nice to have it > stated somewhere so that we can stop thinking of it as the "official" > default IDE for Python and periodically wondering whether we should > try to resuscitate it. And maybe focus our contributions on a project > like VPython etc. instead. > > Bluntly, is IDLE meant to be getting good or to be going away? I don't > know. And I can't find out by reading python.org or this mailing list. > > It feels like this ambiguity isn't only bad for IDLE, but might be > lying behind the issues Jessica refers to. As well as a python > programmer, I'm a digital artist so I've been doing a fair amount with > Processing in the last few years. It's incredible to me that a > language as officiously unpleasant and hostile to beginners as Java > has managed to become the preferred choice for non-technical artists > who want to do cool stuff with graphics, sound and physical computing. > > How did that happen? It's a niche that would have been perfect for > Python. And should have been well within its grasp. As far as I can > tell, Processing's success is a combination of beginner-oriented IDE > and comprehensive library in a single convenient download. Those are > two virtues that Python has been able to boast for 15 years. And yet > ... somehow ... the package didn't quite add up. IDLE wasn't quite > straight-forward enough, and Python's included batteries didn't > include OpenGL, which has become the standard for all the cool > graphics. > > When I've suggested on IDLE-dev that IDLE could evolve to be more like > Processing, that idea has been generally rejected on the grounds that > IDLE is meant to be a "basic editor". But what's a basic editor? One > which never evolves, innovates or adds new functionality? No one is > going to be motivated to work on IDLE if it's not allowed to grow into > anything new. > > At the same time, Jessica asks for Python to be a good beginner's > development environment, straight out of the box. If IDLE isn't the > solution to that requirement then what is? > > That seems the challenge here : either IDLE gets good for beginners > who want to do cool stuff. Which means maybe taking inspiration from > Processing. Or HyperCard. Or really exotic things like LightTable > (http://www.chris-granger.com/lighttable/) Or perhaps the python > community and especially the python.org site, should just drop it and > start promoting (and offering easy beginner downloads for) > comprehensive packages like VPython, IPython, Enthought etc. > > Phil > > > > On 7 February 2014 05:57, Sean Felipe Wolfe <ether....@gmail.com> wrote: > > IDLE!!!!! > > > > We are starting up a partnership with a community center here in > > Oakland, CA, starting kids up with programmming. We're starting with > > Logo (yay, Logo!) and transitioning to Python with the turtle module. > > We've been using IDLE on Linux and also a Raspberry Pi. So far, so > > good! > > > > I for one am ecstatic about IDLE. It has a warm place in my heart. I > > should set aside a few hours a week to help out with it. > > > > Anyhow great video, thanks for the link! > > > > On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 11:31 AM, Guido van Rossum <gu...@python.org> > wrote: > >> On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Bruce Sherwood < > bruce_sherw...@ncsu.edu> > >> wrote: > >>> > >>> I was surprised that in talking about the future of Python Jessica > didn't > >>> touch on what may be really crucial, which is the importance of being > able > >>> to use Python in client-side browser programming. Running in a browser > is of > >>> rapidly increasing importance and Python could easily get left behind. > There > >>> exist multiple projects whose goal is to be able to compile Python to > >>> JavaScript to address this issue. It looks to me like Brython may be > the > >>> best bet, in that it seems to be an active development with a small but > >>> growing community of interested parties. What do you think about this, > >>> Guido? > >> > >> > >> I think this is a lost cause. Many very smart people have broken their > heads > >> against this particular wall. > >> > >>> > >>> I'll mention that with the aid of Steve Spicklemire VPython has been > >>> converted to be based on wxPython, which was vital in order to get off > >>> Carbon and onto Cocoa on the Mac, and which also makes it possible to > use > >>> wxPython widgets with VPython 3D canvases. I'm happy to report that in > the > >>> last six months there were nearly 50,000 downloads of VPython, and > that it's > >>> now featured in four (soon to be five) computational physics textbooks. > >> > >> > >> That's awesome! > >> > >>> > >>> Inspired by VPython, with a big initial push from David Scherer, the > >>> originator of VPython, I'm developing GlowScript (glowscript.org) > where you > >>> can write VPython-like 3D animations using WebGL, writing in > JavaScript or > >>> CoffeeScript. A minimal program is the single-line program > >>> > >>> box() > >>> > >>> This program places a WebGL canvas in the window, displays a cube in > the > >>> window, creates lights to illuminate the scene, places the camera so > that > >>> the cube fills the window, and enables mouse interactions to zoom and > >>> rotate. You can of course control all of these elements, but there are > lots > >>> of good defaults to get going easily. Needless to say writing WebGL > programs > >>> with other tools is vastly more difficult. > >>> > >>> It's already the case that it's very nice to be able to send a URL in > an > >>> email and have the recipient click that link to see a 3D animation > rather > >>> than asking them to install Python and VPython. Here's a simple > example that > >>> will run in WebGL-enabled browsers: > >>> > >>> > >>> > http://www.glowscript.org/#/user/GlowScriptDemos/folder/Examples/program/Bounce-CoffeeScript > >>> > >>> Many more demo programs are available at glowscript.org. > >>> > >>> However: I don't like the syntax of JavaScript, especially for novice > >>> programmers, and even though CoffeeScript is more Pythonesque its > syntax and > >>> use of white space is kind of quirky and, I judge, not good for > novices. I > >>> would love to enable Python as one of the languages (indeed the major > >>> language) for novices and experts to write GlowScript programs. > >> > >> > >> Agreed that CoffeeScript is not newbie-friendly. But browsers have been > even > >> more unfriendly to running Python than mobile platforms. At least for > the > >> latter we have Kivy. > >> > >> -- > >> --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> IDLE-dev mailing list > >> IDLE-dev@python.org > >> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/idle-dev > >> > > > > > > > > -- > > A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, > > if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. > > - Abraham Maslow > > _______________________________________________ > > IDLE-dev mailing list > > IDLE-dev@python.org > > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/idle-dev > _______________________________________________ > IDLE-dev mailing list > IDLE-dev@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/idle-dev >
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