Just began the course. Can someone tell me how to download IDLE? I'm using a MAC O/S. Have already downloaded Python.

Question

Just began the course.  Can someone tell me how to download IDLE?  I'm using a MAC O/S. Have already downloaded Python.

anonymous · Answer

http://www.python.org/getit/mac/tcltk/ - Download Python 3.3, it should include IDLE with the package :) If it doesn't, mail me and I will help you do it another way :)

rsmith6559 · Answer

Don't download Python 3.  MIT's courses are usually in Python 2, which is already on a Mac.

Newer versions of OSX ( >10.5.8 ) apparently have something in /usr/bin which allows IDLE to be launched from a Terminal window with:

idle &

The ampersand allows the window to be used while IDLE is running.

anonymous · Answer

Thanks. Have tried MIT's version.  Will look in use/bin first to see if anything comes up.

rsmith6559 · Answer

Don't bother looking.  Just type "idle &" in a Terminal window and press enter.  If it launches, you're good, if it says "File not found", I'll give you a little script that you can tweak to the version of Python on your machine.  You can put that script in /usr/bin and then the "idle &" will work.

anonymous · Answer

Ok. I'm reluctant to use the terminal window that appeared-has my log-in info, since I'm new to this.  Is there another terminal window I can do this in that won't affect my MAC in case I mess up?

rsmith6559 · Answer

As long as you don't start a command with sudo, you won't have permissions to do anything that a reboot won't solve.

You will need to get comfortable with command line.  Programming is a matter of writing commands that will be executed, rarely generating button clicks and even that would be done with code/commands.