Hi, I don't have any knowledge of this kind of stuff so it would be very helpful if you could create an issue with some more info here: https://bitbucket.org/bobf/bpython/issues

At least then we know about the problem and can get around to fixing it. :)

You're complainimg to the wrong audience.

I rarely need Arabic bidi support in a shell, and if I do, I tend to copy paste from a proper text editor.

Yes, I agree but I don't do any Arabic editing in terminal. The only time I bump up against this problem is when in Arabic IRC channels with irssi, and all the letters are separated and backwards. I usually switch to IRCCloud's web IRC when I'm chatting in Arabic channels anyways.

Over at Konversation, we implemented our bidi text behavior with the help of KDE's Arabic and Hebrew translators. Not only do we render the words correctly RTL, we also switch the overall directionality of the line based on the implied direction of the majority of characters within it, i.e. a line containing predominantly Arabic will be aligned to the right of the window with the nickname to the right of the message. This makes it rather pleasant to use for Arabic channels.

Edit: And I should mention that to my knowledge, KDE's terminal emulator Konsole will render Arabic text correctly as well. However irssi would need to do the alignment part.