IDLE in Jython

N

Nadeem Mohsin

Me and a couple of friends have been thinking of doing something
involving Python for our final year undergrad project. We're
considering the first idea mentioned on this page:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/JythonProjects.

Unfortunately, their statement is a little terse, so I was hoping
someone could give us a better idea of what they wanted. As far as I
can see, they want us to build an integrated development environment
for Jython along the lines of Python's traditional IDLE. Have I gotten
confused, or this really the gist of the idea?

If I've got it right, I'd appreciate some help on the following issues:
1. The broad outlines of what we'll have to do - how much Java and how
much Python?
2. Any Jython specific issues I need to be aware of? How big a part
will Jython play in development?
3. Some idea of the scope of this project and the time it might take a
team of three to get it up and running.

We're looking for something fairly challenging, but not so difficult
that we won't be able to finish it off in time. We have about 7-8
months to pull it off, but we'll have a bunch of pretty hectic exams,
assignments, entrance tests, grad school apps and stuff like that for a
pretty significant proportion of that time. The 'powers that be' are
officially giving us one day a week for it, though I'm pretty certain
we can increase that, and we'll have about a month of free time at the
end of this semester, and less hectic schedules in the next. I'm pretty
certain it's possible, but better heads than mine have been wrong...If
anyone has any ideas for other interesting projects involving Python,
we'd like to hear them too.

At present I'm the only Python coder in the group, but all three of us
are pretty good with Java, and we have a fair amount of experience
doing GUIs in Swing. Hope you guys can help us out.

Nadeem.
 
C

Casey Hawthorne

How about the following:

- making Jython mostly work up to Python 2.4?

- making a PVM (Python Virtual Machine) for the Palm?
 
B

Bill

You might get better answers if you contact the Jython developers
themselves and look at their wiki -
http://www.jython.org/cgi-bin/wiki/FrontPage. Even though you found the
posting on a Python wiki, you really want to consult the Jython
community, and I'm not sure to what extent they participate in this
newsgroup.

Just by reading the description of the task and your post I'd say the
project is certainly doable, but not trivial. Since IDLE is a Python
application the path of least resistance would be to port it to Jython.
The majority of work would probably be in replacing the Tk GUI with a
Java-based GUI. You say that your people have experience with Swing so
you have a leg up on that part.

Since Jython currently does not support all of the latest Python, you
likely will have to work around some features incorporated in the
latest IDLE. As you say that your team has limited experience with
Python, this might be the most challenging part. I'd ask here just how
much experience your team has had with maintenance programming.
Modifying someone elses code is a different task than writing new code
from specifications, and some programmers dislike this kind of work. I
mention this because I think that designing and building an IDE from
scratch IS more than you want to tackle.

You might want to look at some of the other IDEs that support Python.
One of the things you'll want to do is reverse engineer IDLE. If you
are currently using Eclipse for Java development, there are a couple of
plugins for Python which should support Jython to some extent.

Bill
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
473,769
Messages
2,569,582
Members
45,057
Latest member
KetoBeezACVGummies

Latest Threads

Top