Hi, I wanted to share an idea. The Python documentation contains many code snippets that illustrate the described syntax and behaviours of the language and standard libraries. I think having embedded Python console in the docs to let execute the snippets and play with them, would raise the value of docs for its users.
When I think of how it could look like in practice, I see an extra element for the console, similar to a new email composing window in Gmail. A tab or window floating on bottom right of the page. The REPL snippets could have a new action button – “Execute in the console”, which would move the code into the console and execute it live. The console would be a REPL, which would let rerun the commands line by line and modify them.
I have thought about sometime doing something like this by combining pieces of IDLE and turtledemo. Turtledemo has two side-by-side panes – python turtle code in a tk Text window on the left and a turtle canvas on the right.
In IDLE, Help => IDLE Doc displays a local copy of the IDLE web page in an IDLE read-only subclass of a tk Text widget. I does so by running the html text through a html-to-tk converter that knows enough html for this page. I expect the converter would have to be augmented to display other pages. This would replace the turtledemo Text. This would not require a separate version of the docs.
IDLE’s Shell combines a subclass of code.InteractiveInterprer for its logic and a version of IDLE’s Text subclass for its GUI. A version of this would replace the turtle canvas. New glue code to connect the panes would be needed.
