[Idle-dev] Removing IDLE from the standard library

[Kevin Walzer]

On 7/10/10 7:05 PM, Tal Einat wrote:

>
> In recent years IDLE has received negligible interest and attention from
> the Python community. During this time IDLE has slowly gone downhill.
> The documentation and tutorials grow increasingly out of date.
> Cross-platform support has degraded with the increasing popularity of
> OSX and 64-bit platforms. Bugs take months, and sometimes more than a
> year, to be solved. Features that have since become common-place, such
> as having a non-intrusive search box instead of a dialog, are obviously
> and painfully lacking, making IDLE feel clumsy and out-dated.

I have a few questions:

1. Is the issue that no one is filing patches, or that the patches are 
not being applied? I've filed some (rather involved) patches to improve 
IDLE's support on OS X/Snow Leopard (where Tk is built on Cocoa instead 
of Carbon) and they have never been applied.

2. A search dialog vs. a search box is partly a matter of taste, don't 
you think?

3. One issue that would greatly help IDLE would be to integrate the new 
themed ttk widgets--has this happened in Python 2.7 or 3.1?

>
> For these reasons, I think it would be fitting to remove IDLE from the
> standard library. IDLE is no longer recommended to beginners, IMO
> rightfully so, and this was the main reason for its inclusion in the
> standard library. Furthermore, if there is little or no interest in
> developing and maintaining IDLE, it should be removed to avoid having
> buggy and badly supported software in the standard library.

I disagree that IDLE should be removed. I find it very useful. I wonder 
if the issue is overworked maintainers who don't have time to apply 
patches that are submitted. Certainly people should provide patches if 
they are able. After all, IDLE/idleib is pure-Python, not at the C level.

--Kevin


-- 
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com