OSX IDE usability issues

[Lothar Scholz]

holcombea at cardiff.ac.uk (Alex Holcombe) wrote in message news:<1b720baf.0406061535.241aebbc at posting.google.com>...

> 1. when I copy text from a Python script (using command-C or the menu)
>  and paste it in on the command line, only the first line of the text
> is actually executed, even though manually entering the same lines one

This depends on the IDE. Most console applications use the stupid
method of one line after the other, not thinking about the reasons
that lead to this technique a few decades ago. I don't think an
interactive console should be implemented any more in this way.

> 2.Even if the above did work, trying to execute a few lines of code
> out of a Python script should typically not work, if I understand
> Python syntax correctly.  Because to Python indentation whitespace is

You can, this is also possible if the IDE indentifies your initial
indentation and unindent the code before feeding the it to the
interpreter. Should be a few lines of code.

> 3. One nice thing about MATLAB is I can execute a script and then
> query the values of all the script's variables from the command line. 
> By just typing the variable name, I can see its value.  In contrast,
> it appears that in Python variables have more restricted scope such
> that the command line can't "see" the variables executed in a Python
> script.  Is there some way to make the variables in a Python script
> global so that I can play with them on the command line?

Can you explain this a little bit more ?
If you cut&paste some of the former local variables becames of course
global variables. If you give an example it would be much better to
understand.


And from what i know, Python is a much complexer language then MATLAB
so don't expect that everything is so easy. But you get back better
programs.
There are a lot of improvements by using an interpreted language like
python, but maybe this does not fit your personal programming style.
If you get more experience with programming you will find that testing
individuell code snippets will be less and less important. Of couse
it's nice to explore a new library but this can also be done with
simple scripts. In fact i find it much more complicated to cut&paste
code instead of running a file where i do the changes.

Oh yes, (1) and (2) are resolved in "Arachno Python IDE", which is in
a closed beta testing phase.