On 8/5/2015 5:55 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote:
On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 4:43 AM, Terry Reedy <tjre...@udel.edu
<mailto:tjre...@udel.edu>> wrote:
As a user of Idle for several years, and not a beginner, I disagree
with 'only'. That aside, I consider it unnecessary and diversionary
from the numerous known issues that will benefit *everyone*.
The core of this comment is "unnecessary and diversionary ...".
As for 'unnecessary', what does adding 'only' add to the discussion?
Does that mean that we should reject features that also benefit
non-beginners? If not, what does it mean? What extra design guidance
does it add?
As for 'divisionary', see, besides the above, my questions that follow
the 'PyCharm' quote.
Please note that I volunteer my time to improve Idle *because* it is
primarily used by students and secondarily, perhaps, by others who are
not professional programmers.
I was worried that you'd respond like this. *No* change to IDLE will
benefit *everyone*,
Please give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that I am saying
something sensible. By 'everyone', I mean "everyone who uses Idle" and
in relation to a particular issue, 'everyone who use the feature in
question' and in relation of OS-specific issues, 'everyone using that
OS'. With those meanings, my statement is reasonably true.
> for the simple reason that few people outside the
> (non-higher) educational field use it.
Bruce already covered colleges.
There are also post-beginners, but not professional programmers, like my
daughter, who are so far happy with Idle and do not yet need the
advanced features of other Python shells.
And there are Windows users. Windows Command Prompt is awful.
Interactive Python in Command Prompt suffers its sins. I believe most
Windows users who try Idle Shell find it to be a better experience. One
of the other core devs once (blushingly) admitted on pydev to using
Shell on Windows for this reason.
> IDLE should not try to compete with things like PyCharm ...
What does this mean in terms of Idle design decisions? Can you give me
examples of what you think should not be added?
You and Kurt each have twice given general advice that Idle should be
kept 'simple' and not have 'advanced' features added. But I have
trouble turning that general advice into concrete decision making. Are
there any enhancement requests on the tracker you would reject as too
complex or advanced? (To make checking easy, I can send or post a
complete, categorized list.)
A couple of the features at the end of Al's list strike me as the sort
of things you are saying not to do in the advice above. Do you agree?
In particular, consider post-installation switchable multiple language
support. That would, in general, be of most benefit to the youngest
beginners. It is also a rare and rather advanced feature, and complex
not only in terms of the programming, but in the need for coordination
with an internationalization group separate from Idle maintainers
themselves. Should we avoid competing with more advanced programs and
leave this out?
> , nor with the Emacs/Vim world (and I consider most every text editor
> professional coders like to use these days on Linux/Mac/Windows to be
> in that world, from Sublime Text to Atom).
Notepad++ had been recommend as a multiple (50) programming language
editor for Windows on python-list. I have also seen it mentioned on
Stackoverflow.
> IDLE's one redeeming feature is that it's bundled with Python,
As installed, Idle
1. Colorizes Python code
2. Converts \t to ' '
3. Saves in utf-8 (3.x)
4. Checks syntax before running and marks the location of error in the
editor
5. Runs the file in -i mode
6. Displays tracebacks and print output in a window with normal cut and
paste
7. and can jump to the error line of any file in tracebacks
8. ...
As installed, Notepad++ does 1. With some searching through the
extensive settings menus, one of which is not obvious, it can do 2, 3,
and 5. By running in Idle or another external, installed program instead
of command prompt, it can get 6. As far as I know, it can never do 4,
or 7 in the sense of jumping back to Notepad++. With respect to this 7
points, Idle is the better choice for developing Idle programs.
I presume that some of the other programs you mention match Idle in
features 4 and 7, which I find *very* useful. But I think you have an
overly narrow view of the virtues of the program you help create ;-).
And to repeat, Idle makes the interactive mode of Python, as installed,
a joy rather than barely tolerable. If it were removed, another
replacement for command prompt should be found.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
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