Interactive question, change to help() in pydoc.py

[Richard]

Hello,

I've decided to use python to teach programming basics because there 
seems to be great community surrounding python in education.

Regarding the interactive interpreter, is it possible to put it into a 
mode to allow multi-line input, with a "final" execution after the last 
input line?  I'd like students to be able to type code "fragments" into 
the interpreter without it executing each line.  Right now, I'm using:

 >>> if 1:
...   print "hello, world!"
...   print "goodbye, cruel world!"
...

However, I'm teaching people with zero programming / computing 
experience, so I'd like to avoid the complication of explaining the 
requisite indentation and the "if 1:" statement.

Have I missed something in the interactive interpreter documentation (it 
seems a little sparse)?  Thoughts?

Also,

I've changed the pydoc.py module so that it uses readline.  I did this 
by changing it's input from:

request = self.input.readline()

to

request = raw_input("Help> ")

I also commented out the "self.output.write("help> ") and flush bits.

This pollutes the python readline history file, but I think it's 
preferable to have history in the help() interface (especially for 
students).  Perhaps a better solution would be to create a new instance 
of the readline object with a help only history file?  (This might also 
be nice for teachers to review the most frequently used help topics.)

help() still seems to work, are there any problems using raw_input in 
this case?  (I've only been using python for about half an hour now!)

Regards,
Richard