[Python-Dev] IDLE in the stdlib

[Eli Bendersky]

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 8:32 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

> On 3/20/2013 12:41 PM, Eli Bendersky wrote:
>
>  Personally, I think that IDLE reflects badly on Python in more ways than
>> one. It's badly maintained, quirky and ugly.
>>
>
> Ugly is subjective: by what standard and compared to what?
>
>
Compared to other existing Python IDEs and shells which are layered on top
of modern GUI toolkits that are actively developed to keep with modern
standards, unlike Tk which is frozen in the 1990s.


> I suggested in my previous response why I think 'badly maintained' is
> untrue and/or unfair. Dismissing the recent work that has been done does
> not help.
>

I did not intend to dismiss your work Terry, and I'm sorry if it came out
this way. You know that I also contributed bug fixes to IDLE in the past so
I'm not a complete outsider. I see the value of IDLE being distributed with
Python. However, especially in view of the recent developments in the area
of alternative Python implementations, I think it's important to clearly
mark the boundaries between things that belong in the core CPython code
repository and things that don't.

>
> There are 20 open issues with smtp(lib) in the title. It is 37 kb, making
> .54 issues per kb. For idlelib, with 786 kb, there are 104 issues, or .13
> issues per kb, which is one fourth as many. I could claim that smtplib,
> based on 1990s RFCs is much worse maintained. It certainly could use somee
> positive attention.
>

You know better than I do that the number of open issues is not really the
only factor for determining the quality of a module.



Eli

--


> What current quirks, not already the subject of a tracker issue, are you
> thinking of?
>
>
> > It serves a very narrow set of uses,
>
> Relative to the computing universe, yes. It focuses on editing and running
> Python code.
>
> > and does it badly.
>
> As a user, I rate it at least 'good'. Most of the tracker issues hardly
> affect me, and many or most of the worst problems for me have already been
> fixed. What IDE would you suggest as a simple, install and go, alternative?
> It should have the following features or something close:
> * One-key saves the file and runs it with the -i option (enter interactive
> mode after running the file) so one can enter additional statements
> interactively.
> * Syntax errors cause a message display; one click returns to the spot the
> error was detected.
> * Error tracebacks are displayed unmodified, without extra garbage or
> censorship.
> # Right click on a line like
>  File "C:\Programs\Python33\lib\**difflib.py", line 1759, ...
> and then left click on the goto popup to go to that line in that file,
> opening the file if necessary.
>
> As of 3.3.0, this last feature was not documented, at least not in the
> Idle Help file. Since then, it has been.
>
>


> --
> Terry Jan Reedy
>
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> Python-Dev mailing list
> Python-Dev at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/**mailman/listinfo/python-dev<http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev>
> Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/**mailman/options/python-dev/**
> eliben%40gmail.com<http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/eliben%40gmail.com>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20130320/50470ab9/attachment-0001.html>