[Edu-sig] Getting it going

[Guido van Rossum]

> No, we want to extent idle. One patch I want to write is that
> "if a:" autoindents, "if a: # if it's true" does not. I can't find where
> to change it, and that's one thing Guido pointed out: tools would make
> that easier. Especially (how do you spell that word?) for kids. But I
> don't think new tools would be needed for that: idle could be extended
> and promoted.

Note that that particular change is already in the CVS tree for IDLE
(python.org/download/cvs.html).

I've also found at the conference that there are already at least half
a dozen serious IDEs (interactive development environments) for Python
in existence or under development.  I still want to continue to use
IDLE to experiment with some advanced features (such as syntax
checking while you type), but I think it's important that the
classroom materials allow the choice of different IDEs -- if only
because not all IDEs work on all platforms, and we do need to support
Windows, Mac and Linux!

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