On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohn...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Dec 25, 9:27 pm, Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 4:44 AM, Rick Johnson >> > [...] >> Conversely, why write an IDE into IDLE when perfectly-good IDEs >> already exist? I don't use IDLE for development per se; it's for >> interactive Python execution, but not editing of source files. > > I believe the answer is two fold: > > 1. Including an IDE like IDLE into the Python distro helps noobs to > get started quickly without needing to traverse a gauntlet of unknown > IDEs on their own. If later they find something that they feel is more > appropriate; so be it. > > 2. (and most important to me... IDLE is written in Python using the > Tkinter GUI (which ships with python also). Therefore, the source code > for IDLE can be a GREAT teaching resource for how to write > professional Tkinter applications. I KNOW THE CURRENT SOURCE SUCKS! > However, we could change that. > > So, with those points being covered, i believe IDLE is very important > to the Python community and could be useful to more people IF we clean > it up a bit. It's really a great little IDE with even greater > potential. If Guido would just say something (or at least some of the > top Pythionistas (Hettinger i am looking at you!)) this community > might work together to fix this problem.
Not everyone who has Python installed wants to learn the language. I do think that a "learning" distro that has a lot of core tools pre-installed, and ships with some tutorials, would be a decent idea. Sort of like Enthought for new users :) I don't feel IDLE is worth salvaging though. Nathan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list