Alternative ReadLine for Windows (was Re: Any other Python flaws?)

[Alex Martelli]

"Tiago Henriques" <tiago.henriques at portugal.sun.com> wrote in message
news:636fd38f.0106200145.337888a3 at posting.google.com...
    ...
> Another annoying missing feature is the absence of command line editing in
the
> python shell. Perhaps now that the license has been made gnu-compatible it
will
> be possible to ship python pre-compiled with the readline library, instead
of

Such a package would be GPL-infected, so I suspect the Python Software
Foundation itself will not bundle it, but there's nothing to stop other
repackagers from so doing.

> having to compile python yourself. I have compiled python with readline
support
> myself, and it's pretty easy, but for the average user who is afraid of
makefiless
> and compilations, it would be extra-nice if python were a bit more
user-friendly
> out-of-the-box.

A user afraid of makefiles and compilations is likely to be working on
Windows.
For *THAT*, I *highly* recommend Gonnerman's "Alternative ReadLine" library.

At http://newcenturycomputers.net/projects/readline.html one finds various
packages, including self-installing executables for Windows and both Python
2.0 and 2.1, built with the wonderful distutils.  It doesn't get much easier
than that -- download the exe, run it, you're done -- you have command-line
editing and history.  I would hope today's average user is not afraid of
downloading and running a tiny self-installing executable from a trustworthy
site -- the only remaining problem is making it *WIDELY* known that it's
not a problem any more (sure, it WOULD be even nicer if it came with the
Python distribution for Windows:-).


Alex