Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info>:

> On Sun, 28 Feb 2016 11:38 pm, BartC wrote:
>> It's the GUI users who are the Neanderthals, having to effectively
>> point at things with sticks. Or have to physically move that rock
>> themselves (ie. drag a file to a wastebasket).
>
> I haven't physically moved an icon to the wastebasket for years. I
> point at the icon, right-click, and tell it "move yourself to the
> trash".

Do you find that interface convenient? Do you often find yourself
clickety-clicking around to perform bulk file operations?

> Language is pretty important. But when you need to drive a nail into a
> piece of wood, would you rather hit the nail with a hammer, or explain
> to the hammer the precise direction and magnitude of force you would
> like it to apply when it impacts the nails?

I don't know. My everyday file manipulation needs are so diverse that I
couldn't imagine how a GUI would make my life easier.

What I'm thinking is, could Python turn into a serious competitor to
bash? The standard shell suffers greatly from sloppy quoting, and many
of the age-old list-processing idioms are more awkward than cute.

A python shell would need a well-thought-out default import plus a way
to string together external commands. Maybe JSON or similar could be the
standard I/O framing format (instead of SPC-separated fields and
LF-separated records).

Someone must have tried that before. (Tclsh did that years back but
suffered from analogous problems as bash.)


Marko