interpreter improvements

[Quinn Dunkan]

On 19 Jul 2001 03:24:31 -0700, kevin parks <kp87 at lycos.com> wrote:
>I've always wondered why the interpreter was so, uhm...difficult, even
>compared to wish (tcl). I like to mess around and improvise in the
>interpreter, but find that it is so feature-starved that it is often a
>bit tedious. Couldn't the interpreter be improved to behave more like
>a real shell, with command history and maybe evn completion or (god
>forbid) keywork syntax coloring. Couldn't it support some basic shell
>commands like more and ls and such? Even in wish i can type ls and get
>a listing. The interpreter is a great tool, but it really requires a
>wicked amount of typing and you can't eaily recall and edit these
>monster that you type in at the prompt.

It can do all those things, and it does, if you compile the readline module.

Except shell commands.  Python is a different language from sh---that's the
whole point.

The other observation is that line editing belongs in the terminal emulator or
window system, not seperately in every single program that runs under it.  If
you use a terminal emulator with cut and paste and line editing then all
programs automatically have those features.