Community (A Modest Proposal)

[rantingrick]

On Jun 13, 12:45 pm, Terry Reedy <tjre... at udel.edu> wrote:
> On 6/13/2010 12:14 PM, rantingrick wrote:
>
> > I have documented time and again the poor state of IDLE. The only
> > responses i ever get are...
>
> >   "Nobody uses IDLE"
> >   "Only a dumbass would use IDLE"
> >   "I have never used IDLE but i *know* nothing is wrong with it"
>
> Perhaps you are listening selectively. I have said more than once on
> this list that I use IDLE, I like using it, it works for me, AND I would
> like it improved. When a student proposed that as part of a Google
> Summer of Code project, I (and others) encouraged him to go ahead, which
> he did. Any concrete effort you make to improve IDLE would be
> appreciated by me. There are issues on the tracker already.
>
> Terry Jan Reedy

Sorry Terry -- with all the noise here the very few "quality" signals
just seem to be lost on my "auditory cortex".

 We are at once lucky to have a built in editor and at the same time
cursed by the very static development cycles of this module. IDLE is a
mess and i think the only way to fix this mess is strip it stark
naked, expose it's ugly to the world, and slowly add the layers back
to it in a more intelligent way all the while creating a more elegant
IDLE in the process.

Some peeves:
 The tabs in the shell and four spaces in the editor is just complete
nonsense! The fact that the shell does not insert a "... "
continuation is a real nuance! The constant "zombie" processes
requiring explicit kills via task manager are quite annoying (albeit
not topping my list of concerns at this time). Not to mention the fact
that a file dialog, replace dialog, or find dialog can lose focus and
drop to the bottom of the window stack faster than Obama's approval
ratings after BP takes a leak!

 One feature i would like to create is an ability to redo the last
command. Pressing an F* key should return you to the last block for
editing. Why have a traceback clutter up the output when you made a
simple little mistake? I hate to have a shell just cluttered with
exceptions. Also the ability to clear the buffer and maybe also remove
*all* exceptions might be an added bonus for our "tidy" minded
friends.

 But digging a bit deeper... not only is the UI awful, but the code
itself is just awful. That may be the reason why i start to fix it,
get frustrated, and then shortly after quit. IDLE has not been
properly maintained since Guido left us the house keys. Too many frat
parties and booze fests have left IDLE in a state of disrepair.

 Although I think IDLE is *so* very important to... of course i am not
speaking to the emacs guys or "that other editor" crowd. *you* people
would not be caught dead using IDLE... *to* the new users of Python
(and like in Terry and my exception) some tried and true Pythonistas!

 Hopefully i'll get the motivation for that re-write real soon. So far
i have only corrected a few small but very annoying facets of the UI
in between my other various up-and-coming projects. However it would
be nice to get all the "IDLE-heads" together and do a complete
rewrite. The nice thing about a group is the motivation factor.