Removal of tkinter from python 3.0? [was: Fate of the repr modulein Py3.0]

[7stud]

On Mar 20, 8:42 pm, "Terry Reedy" <tjre... at udel.edu> wrote:
> "Paul Rubin" <"http://phr.cx"@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote in message
>
> news:7xy78dg79e.fsf at ruckus.brouhaha.com...
> | "Daniel Fetchinson" <fetchin... at googlemail.com> writes:
> | > Is it just me or others also think that it would be a major loss to
> | > remove tkinter from the python core?
> |
> | That would be terrible.  Every time I've tried to use one of the other
> | packages it has led to installation hell.  Tkinter isn't great, but
> | it's extremely useful to have a gui module that's present
> | automatically in every compete Python installation and that is
> | reasonably cross platform.  I can write a Python/Tkinter app under
> | Linux and send it to Windows users and they can run it after a single,
> | very simple Python installation from the Windows .msi.  I have no
> | Windows development tools whatsoever and very limited access to
> | Windows boxes, so any Python code I deploy on Windows can't rely on
> | any non-Python code outside of the stdlib.
> |
> | Also, because of tkinter's inherent limitations, I have the impression
> | that upgrading it to the latest and greatest tcl/tk release wouldn't
> | improve it much over the useful but low-rent module that it already is.
> | Therefore, that supposed "benefit" of splitting it out to an external
> | package is not much of a benefit.
> |
> | One of Python's traditionally best attractions has been the depth of
> | its standard libraries, and backing away from that would be plain
> | self-destructive.  Python needs more stuff in its stdlib, not less.
> | If Tkinter doesn't satisfy, then add Gtk (or whatever) to the standard
> | distro.  If that happens (i.e. some new toolkit is brought in and
> | declared to be the standard) then it might be ok to drop Tkinter but
> | it certainly shouldn't be dropped without a replacement.
>
> I think this nicely summarizes the case against dropping tkinter (and
> indeed, the case against shrinking the stdlib), like some devs (who mostly
> une *nix) want to do.  Perhaps someone can forward it to the lib-sig and/or
> the Py3-devel lists.
>
> tjr

I think one of the advantages that python has over ruby is that python
comes with tkinter.  For me, tkinter worked from the get go after I
installed python.  I don't know if that's because my os already had
the necessary tcl/tk framework set up or not, but not having to go
through installation hell to get it working was nice.

On the other hand, Ruby doesn't come with a gui framework.  And trying
to get Ruby tk working is a nightmare that I suspect many new
programmers will never accomplish, and therefore gui programming will
largely be inaccessible to them.

Since the adherents to the various languages like to list the reasons
why their language is better, removing tkinter from python will only
will make python's list shorter.