On 27/10/2016 00:30, Terry Reedy wrote:
On 10/26/2016 7:18 AM, BartC wrote:
Can tkinter do it without creating a distracting pop-up window at the
same time?
Yes. I already showed how on this thread. Of course, for some text
appications, one would be better off with a Text widget than with the
system-specific console.
Bart, you appear to have been fortunate enough to be spoiled by learning
programming on microcomputers, where the terminal and computer are
combined into one unit, so that the computer, and potentially the
programmer, have access to user input actions.
Actually, I first used machines such as pdp10 and pdp11. Those mostly
used serial terminals, a mystery to me, and they still are. It seems
Unix is keen to propagate the mystery.
However, Python was not
developed on, and in not limited to use on, such machines. Today,
ethernet-connected *nix servers have no keyboard, mouse, or even a
directly connected terminal.
So how does your tkinter example work in such a server? As I don't
understand the argument that a language shouldn't have a basic keyboard
API because some computers it could run on might not have a keyboards.
Anyway vast numbers of /consumer/ machines /do/ have displays and
keyboards. Look at any computer in an office: it has a display and
keyboard. Look at any laptop: display and keyboard. Even a tablet can
have an on-screen keyboard or have a real one plugged in.
Over 20 years ago, tk was written in tcl and C to give tcl programmers
access to X Windows graphics terminals, including user input actions. It
has since been ported to MS Windows and Apple OSX and adopted by other
languages, including Python, to give the same access.
OK. I was writing graphics applications before a lot of those things
existed. They needed to use a display and they needed user input, and I
had to make it work. I couldn't ask my customers to wait a decade or so
until someone invented an API before they could fully use their keyboards!
(I've looked at X Windows; bloody hell, it makes Win32/GDI look like
child's play. It's quite frustrating see things that used to be so
simple to do become next to impossible.)
--
Bartc
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