[Idle-dev] The Future of Python

Sat Feb 8 01:39:07 CET 2014

I tried to improve IDLE for a little while and I believe the main problem
is tk. It's a source of a lot of bugs and some weird behavior.

On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 9:40 PM, phil jones <interstar at gmail.com> wrote:

> Just putting a couple of thoughts / questions out to the community here :
>
> The impression I get about IDLE is that it's a bit of an
> embarrassment. (Possibly because of tk). Everyone accepts it's
> substandard. But no-one seems to want it to grow into something else
> (eg. a full IDE, something more like PythonCard / VisualBasic /
> Processing). Maybe IDLE is deprecated and the hope is it will die
> quietly. But if that IS the plan, then it would be nice to have it
> stated somewhere so that we can stop thinking of it as the "official"
> default IDE for Python and periodically wondering whether we should
> try to resuscitate it. And maybe focus our contributions on a project
> like VPython etc. instead.
>
> Bluntly, is IDLE meant to be getting good or to be going away? I don't
> know. And I can't find out by reading python.org or this mailing list.
>
> It feels like this ambiguity isn't only bad for IDLE, but might be
> lying behind the issues Jessica refers to. As well as a python
> programmer, I'm a digital artist so I've been doing a fair amount with
> Processing in the last few years. It's incredible to me that a
> language as officiously unpleasant and hostile to beginners as Java
> has managed to become the preferred choice for non-technical artists
> who want to do cool stuff with graphics, sound and physical computing.
>
> How did that happen? It's a niche that would have been perfect for
> Python. And should have been well within its grasp. As far as I can
> tell, Processing's success is a combination of beginner-oriented IDE
> and comprehensive library in a single convenient download. Those are
> two virtues that Python has been able to boast for 15 years. And yet
> ... somehow ... the package didn't quite add up. IDLE wasn't quite
> straight-forward enough, and Python's included batteries didn't
> include OpenGL, which has become the standard for all the cool
> graphics.
>
> When I've suggested on IDLE-dev that IDLE could evolve to be more like
> Processing, that idea has been generally rejected on the grounds that
> IDLE is meant to be a "basic editor". But what's a basic editor? One
> which never evolves, innovates or adds new functionality? No one is
> going to be motivated to work on IDLE if it's not allowed to grow into
> anything new.
>
> At the same time, Jessica asks for Python to be a good beginner's
> development environment, straight out of the box. If IDLE isn't the
> solution to that requirement then what is?
>
> That seems the challenge here : either IDLE gets good for beginners
> who want to do cool stuff. Which means maybe taking inspiration from
> Processing. Or HyperCard. Or really exotic things like LightTable
> (http://www.chris-granger.com/lighttable/) Or perhaps the python
> community and especially the python.org site, should just drop it and
> start promoting (and offering easy beginner downloads for)
> comprehensive packages like VPython, IPython, Enthought etc.
>
> Phil
>
>
>
> On 7 February 2014 05:57, Sean Felipe Wolfe <ether.joe at gmail.com> wrote:
> > IDLE!!!!!
> >
> > We are starting up a partnership with a community center here in
> > Oakland, CA, starting kids up with programmming. We're starting with
> > Logo (yay, Logo!) and transitioning to Python with the turtle module.
> > We've been using IDLE on Linux and also a Raspberry Pi. So far, so
> > good!
> >
> > I for one am ecstatic about IDLE. It has a warm place in my heart. I
> > should set aside a few hours a week to help out with it.
> >
> > Anyhow great video, thanks for the link!
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 11:31 AM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org>
> wrote:
> >> On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Bruce Sherwood <
> Bruce_Sherwood at ncsu.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I was surprised that in talking about the future of Python Jessica
> didn't
> >>> touch on what may be really crucial, which is the importance of being
> able
> >>> to use Python in client-side browser programming. Running in a browser
> is of
> >>> rapidly increasing importance and Python could easily get left behind.
> There
> >>> exist multiple projects whose goal is to be able to compile Python to
> >>> JavaScript to address this issue. It looks to me like Brython may be
> the
> >>> best bet, in that it seems to be an active development with a small but
> >>> growing community of interested parties. What do you think about this,
> >>> Guido?
> >>
> >>
> >> I think this is a lost cause. Many very smart people have broken their
> heads
> >> against this particular wall.
> >>
> >>>
> >>> I'll mention that with the aid of Steve Spicklemire VPython has been
> >>> converted to be based on wxPython, which was vital in order to get off
> >>> Carbon and onto Cocoa on the Mac, and which also makes it possible to
> use
> >>> wxPython widgets with VPython 3D canvases. I'm happy to report that in
> the
> >>> last six months there were nearly 50,000 downloads of VPython, and
> that it's
> >>> now featured in four (soon to be five) computational physics textbooks.
> >>
> >>
> >> That's awesome!
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Inspired by VPython, with a big initial push from David Scherer, the
> >>> originator of VPython, I'm developing GlowScript (glowscript.org)
> where you
> >>> can write VPython-like 3D animations using WebGL, writing in
> JavaScript or
> >>> CoffeeScript. A minimal program is the single-line program
> >>>
> >>> box()
> >>>
> >>> This program places a WebGL canvas in the window, displays a cube in
> the
> >>> window, creates lights to illuminate the scene, places the camera so
> that
> >>> the cube fills the window, and enables mouse interactions to zoom and
> >>> rotate. You can of course control all of these elements, but there are
> lots
> >>> of good defaults to get going easily. Needless to say writing WebGL
> programs
> >>> with other tools is vastly more difficult.
> >>>
> >>> It's already the case that it's very nice to be able to send a URL in
> an
> >>> email and have the recipient click that link to see a 3D animation
> rather
> >>> than asking them to install Python and VPython. Here's a simple
> example that
> >>> will run in WebGL-enabled browsers:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> http://www.glowscript.org/#/user/GlowScriptDemos/folder/Examples/program/Bounce-CoffeeScript
> >>>
> >>> Many more demo programs are available at glowscript.org.
> >>>
> >>> However: I don't like the syntax of JavaScript, especially for novice
> >>> programmers, and even though CoffeeScript is more Pythonesque its
> syntax and
> >>> use of white space is kind of quirky and, I judge, not good for
> novices. I
> >>> would love to enable Python as one of the languages (indeed the major
> >>> language) for novices and experts to write GlowScript programs.
> >>
> >>
> >> Agreed that CoffeeScript is not newbie-friendly. But browsers have been
> even
> >> more unfriendly to running Python than mobile platforms. At least for
> the
> >> latter we have Kivy.
> >>
> >> --
> >> --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> IDLE-dev mailing list
> >> IDLE-dev at python.org
> >> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/idle-dev
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write,
> > if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
> > - Abraham Maslow
> > _______________________________________________
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> > IDLE-dev at python.org
> > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/idle-dev
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