How to debug python + curses? [was: RE: Applying winpdb_reborn]

[Cameron Simpson]

On 02Jun2021 21:24, pjfarley3 at earthlink.net <pjfarley3 at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards at gmail.com>
>> Perhaps Windows isn't an appropriate OS under which to develop curses
>> applicatoins?
>
>Perhaps, but why isn't it?

I don't think it isn't. (Um, so many negatives in that sentence - I mean 
I don't consider Windows inappropriate.)

The only salient negative I've seen in this thread is that it isn't 
trivial to "open another terminal and direct messages there". Otherwise, 
if there's a decent remote debugger I don't see a technical reason to 
diss Windows.

That said, I am not a Windows person and probably never will be; 
Microsoft the company have had a long history of gratuitously doing 
things differently for market based reasons rather than technical 
reasons and on a personal basis I find Windows desktops painful to use.  
Some of that is lack of familiarity, doubtless. And my own UNIX side 
desktops are usually spartan by others' standards.

><rant>
>Why are Windows users, even knowledgeable ones, so often considered second-
>or even third-class netizens?
>
>I do know some of the answers that will come back for that question, but the
>attitude is not professional.
></rant>

I agree it is not professional. I know some Windows devs and they're 
broadly just as sane as the UNIXy folks I'm more familiar with.

But a lot of things in Windows do seem... more complex.

The UNIX world has quite a simple underlying basis, and that spills over 
into the simplicity of connecting things together. We _expect_ to just 
glom files and terminals and whatever together with pipes and 
redirections, and the flip side is that many things developed in that 
world are slanted for that to be easy, and when that doesn't translate 
to Windows that looks like a poor environment to an outsider.

The historic difficulties with installing Python on Windows probably 
also spill over into this. There are skilled people inside Microsoft who 
have brought Python installs into the (I gather) first class citizen 
area recently, meaning (again, I gather) that a user can go to the MS 
store and push a button. Most UNIXy platforms come with Python 
preinstalled.

All of these caveats aside, I think Grant's being a bit uncharitable.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs at cskk.id.au>