IDLE

---

title: "IDLE" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["free-computer-libraries", "free-integrated-development-environments", "software-programmed-in-python", "software-using-the-python-software-foundation-license", "free-integrated-development-environments-for-python", "monty-python-references"] description: "Integrated development environment for Python" topic_path: "general/free-computer-libraries" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDLE" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Integrated development environment for Python ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

Field	Value
name	IDLE
title	IDLE
screenshot	Python's IDLE.png
caption	IDLE in action under Ubuntu: shell with highlights settings
author	Guido van Rossum
released
latest release version
latest release date
programming language	Python
language
genre	Integrated development environment
website
::

| name = IDLE | title = IDLE | logo = | screenshot = Python's IDLE.png | caption = IDLE in action under Ubuntu: shell with highlights settings | collapsible = | author = Guido van Rossum | developer = | released = | latest release version = | latest release date = | discontinued = | programming language = Python | platform = | size = | language = | status = | genre = Integrated development environment | license = | website = IDLE (short for Integrated Development and Learning Environment) is an integrated development environment for Python, which has been bundled with the default implementation of the language since 1.5.2b1. It is packaged as an optional part of the Python packaging with many Linux distributions. It is completely written in Python and the Tkinter GUI toolkit (wrapper functions for Tcl/Tk).

IDLE is intended to be a simple IDE and suitable for beginners, especially in an educational environment. To that end, it is cross-platform, and avoids feature clutter.

According to the included README and the online IDLE documentation, its main features are:

• Multi-window text editor with syntax highlighting, autocompletion, smart indent and other features.
• Python shell with syntax highlighting.
• Integrated debugger with stepping, persistent breakpoints, and call stack visibility.

Author Guido van Rossum says IDLE stands for "Integrated Development and Learning Environment", and since Van Rossum named the language Python after the British comedy group Monty Python, the name IDLE was probably also chosen partly to honor Eric Idle, one of Monty Python's founding members.

References

References

1. From the Help > About screen
2. "IDLE — Python 3.9.5 documentation".
3. Van Rossum, Guido. (16 Nov 1998). "IDLE 0.1 -- a Python IDE". comp.lang.python.
4. [https://web.archive.org/web/20191101181226/https://hg.python.org/cpython/file/tip/Lib/idlelib/HISTORY.txt IDLE 0.1 was distributed with the Python 1.5.2b1 release on 12/22/98.], From: ''\Python-1.5.2\Tools\idle\NEWS.txt''
5. "IDLE documentation quote".
6. "IDLE — Python 3.9.2 documentation".
7. Lutz, Mark & Ascher, David (2004). ''Learning Python'', p. 40. O'Reilly Media, Inc. {{ISBN. 978-0-596-00281-7.
8. (2000). "Python programming on Win32". O'Reilly Media, Inc..

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::