Re: [Python-Dev] Replacing IDLE

2009-11-10 Thread Vincent Manis
On 2009-11-10, at 22:07, Greg Ewing wrote:
> So, I'd say that, like democracy, [IDLE is] not very good, but
> it's better than any of the alternatives. :-)


Speaking purely as a Python user, I am very happy that IDLE is part of the 
Python distribution. Personally, I use and like emacs too much, and have no use 
for IDLE for my own programming at all. But I have taught a lot of Python 
classes, and being able to tell the IT staff `please install Python x.y on the 
machines in the lab', and then knowing that students have everything they need 
to do their lab work, is a major plus. (I found that many of the students 
stayed with IDLE even after their course was over, too.)

As a side observation, I think the main reasons why Tk is so resistant to 
removal from Python (and several other dynamic languages) is that its 
developers took very seriously the idea of being lightweight and portable, 
while many other toolkits grew more and more complex. Not all GUI toolkits are 
like that; I have nice things to say about FLTK, for example. Perhaps one day 
somebody will do a revision of Tk (sans Tcl) for the 21st century, but until 
then, Greg's Winston Churchill quote applies not just to IDLE but also to Tk. 

[`This horse is dead, please stop flogging it.' `No it's not, it's just 
observing the moratorium']

-- v
___
Python-Dev mailing list
Python-Dev@python.org
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev
Unsubscribe: 
http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com


Re: [Python-Dev] Replacing IDLE

2009-11-10 Thread Vincent Manis
On 2009-11-10, at 22:17, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> If that imaginary editor has lots of build dependencies that make
> it really difficult to use it, I would be opposed to including it.
> If it requires one library that is typically already available on
> a Linux system, it would be fine with me.
s/Linux/Linux, Mac (Aqua, not X11), and Windows/

-- v
___
Python-Dev mailing list
Python-Dev@python.org
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev
Unsubscribe: 
http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com