[Python-Dev] PEP 370, open questions

[Eric Smith]

glyph at divmod.com wrote:

<discussion of per-user directories on different platforms>

> One of the problems we've encountered over and over again with 
> Combinator is that MacOS has a dual personality.  Its personality is not 
> just an issue of framework vs. non-framework build, but a fundamental 
> question of "is this platform a UNIX or is it not a UNIX".

MacOS isn't the only platform that has this problem.  I use cygwin under 
Windows, and I wish Python (whether or not a cygwin build) would also 
use ~/.local.

> On the Mac, our user now has a problem: given that ~/Library/Python/ 
> doesn't follow the /usr or /usr/local style filesystem layout, 
> autotools-based projects will not build their libraries in the right 
> places using a single command-line option.  (I guess maybe you could do 
> something with --bindir and --sbindir and --exec-prefix or whatever, I 
> don't know.  I tend to get bored and wander off when I have to pass more 
> than 3 options to a configure script.)

I guess Windows isn't as bad as MacOS in this case, because there's no 
standard to follow and conflict with.  Everything under whatever 
directory we choose won't likely match other packages, so we can do 
whatever we want.  Still, I'd prefer something under $HOME.

> Windows has this problem less because everything has to be done so 
> completely differently.

True, except that cygwin tries hard to make it look like Unix.  I'd 
rather Python under Windows really look like Unix, but I'm probably in a 
minority.  And yes, I do share computers (physically and through 
Terminal Server), so per-user local libraries would be nice.

Eric.