[Pythonmac-SIG] IDLE and MacPython 2.5

[Bob Ippolito]

On 10/31/06, Jacob Rus <jrus at hcs.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Christopher Barker wrote:
> > Jacob Rus wrote:
> >> Admittedly, the python bundle is not as polished
> >> as those for some other languages (html and ruby for instance), but it
> >> is still head and shoulders above all the other editors listed above, in
> >> my opinion.  some more people from this list ought to give it a shot
> >> (the python bundle really needs some more competent contributors to live
> >> up to its potential,
> >
> > Can the Python mode be altered/improved by users? Is TextMate open to
> > input/contribution from users?
>
> Yes indeed, which is why I say it needs to have more contributors from
> the Mac Python community.  There are several dozen active contributors
> to the bundle repository (only a few python users though), and the
> community seems in general to be quite energetic and active.
>
> Allan tosses new features to bundle contributors every few weeks (last
> week it was the quite impressive new tm_dialog tool, which allows a
> command to use interface builder .nib files as a dialog, sending the
> result back to the command as a plist file), and those features ripple
> down through the bundles as people build new toys to take advantage of them.
>
> Anyway, the primary places where the current TextMate python bundle can
> be improved are a) a better python script runner, with prettier styled
> output, and more linkified tracebacks, b) better documentation of the
> bundle, and better tools for fetching documentation about the functions
> and classes being used. and c) more snippets and commands for code-entry
> can be added.  Snippets a very powerful tool, and the python bundle
> under-utilizes them at the moment.
>
> > That is what it takes to really make it
> > shine. A couple years ago a BBedit user posted excerpts from an email
> > discussion with the BBedit folks about how they might improve BBEdit for
> > Python -- and it came down to the BBedit folks saying : you shouldn't
> > want to do that, and we're not going to let you -- it was clear none of
> > them was a regular Python user, so BBedit's Python support is still
> > severely lacking.
>
> That is very sad.  TextMate, and its community certainly do not share
> this philosophy.  The TextMate support for python is already
> significantly better than BBEdit's support.  But it's not as good as it
> could be, either.
>
> > The primary reason I use Xemacs is because it has excellent modes for
> > EVERY kind of text I edit -- and ALL of them were written by serious
> > users of the respective type of text -- that's why they are so good
> > (didn't Guido write the original Python mode for Emacs?)
>
> Well, personally, as a Mac user, I think that a python bundle that fully
> took advantage of TextMate would be nicer than the emacs python mode.
> But it will take a non-trivial amount of work.  One of the problems with
> the current TextMate is that grammars and folding patterns, etc. are
> rather geared toward working with end markers on blocks, and don't
> really handle indentation-based structure as well as I would like.  But
> I think those problems will go away in TextMate 2.0, which should come
> out sometime after Leopard does (when I'm hoping python 2.5 and pyObjC
> will be shipped standard with the OS??).
>
> TextMate's scope system is based around a quite understandable, and
> extremely flexible, regular-expression-based lexer/parser, and though it
> makes a few compromises in the name of efficiency (Text Editors have
> different needs than compilers and interpreters, naturally), it stands
> head and shoulders above any other editor when it comes to scoping all
> the elements of a language, and allowing granular context-sensitive
> control of the editor's behavior.  I really think all powerful editors
> will work this way in 10 years, as it's too useful a feature for others
> to ignore for long.
>
> > I'm still looking for an editor/IDE that supports everything I do, and
> > works on all three platforms I need it on
>
> Well, it doesn't work on Windows or Linux, but on the Mac, in my opinion
> TextMate is the nicest editor around.  There are quite a few emacs/vim
> converts in the community, who seem to be happily adjusted.
>
> I think at the very least, every Mac user who deals with any significant
> amount of structured text or code owes it to themselves to download the
> 30-day trial.  I estimate within 2 weeks, you'll be hooked ;)

Well, as a point of reference.. I bought TextMate because it's nice to
use for demos and such.. but I still use Vim for writing Python code
and Emacs for writing Erlang code.

I never could get hooked on TextMate, despite trying. It just isn't as
convenient to use as what I'm used to... for example, I do quite a lot
of regexing, and that takes a lot more effort from TextMate. I do like
how it colors diffs though, I find myself piping commands such as "svn
diff" into it now and then.

-bob