Question

Are we supposed to be writing these programs in python shell? (I just downloaded Python 2.54 and am wondering if I'm missing something important.)

Answer 1

alt-f-n in Idle will get you to an Idle editing window where you can write your scripts. Be sure to save with a .py extension or the syntax highlighting won't work. from within the Idle editing window, F5 will run the script with the results printed to the shell window. it works pretty good. don't disregard the utility of the shell though - it is a great place to play and try stuff out to see how it works and to do some minor prototyping.

you can use any text editor to write Python modules. There are many that support Python syntax highlighting.

Answer 2

thank you