On Apr 19, 10:35 am, Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 2013.04.19 12:17, lcrocker wrote:> Am I mistaken in my belief that tkinter > is a non-optional part of the > > Python language? I installed the "python3" package on Ubuntu, and > > tkinter is not included--it's an optional package "python3-tk" that > > has to be installed separately. I reported this as a bug as was > > summarily slapped down. > > Forcing Tkinter as a dependency would result in a ton of things being > installed to support it. Why should a web server using Django have X > installed and running because Python /can/ support a GUI in the standard > library? It's trivial to install Tkinter if you need it, but it > would be a huge mess to try to remove it from an installation that requires > it - even if you never use Tkinter. Ubuntu is far from alone > here. FreeBSD (and probably the other BSDs) and most Linux distros do > something similar. There is zero reason to force Tkinter and its > dependencies on all Python users. > -- > CPython 3.3.0 | Windows NT 6.2.9200 / FreeBSD 9.1
I understand that for something like a server distribution, but Ubuntu is a user-focused desktop distribution. It has a GUI, always. The purpose of a distro like that is to give users a good experience. If I install Python on Windows, I get to use Python. On Ubuntu, I don't, and I think that will confuse some users. I recently recommended Python to a friend who wants to start learning programming. Hurdles like this don't help someone like him. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
