Trent Mick <trentm@ActiveState.com> writes:
[Phillip J. Eby wrote]
With Perl and Ruby, for example, scripts from a 3rd party package will be installed next to the main interpreter binary (i.e. on the PATH) on all platforms. Would having setuptools (and changing distutils) to install scripts next to python.exe wreak unwarranted havoc?
Sadly, yes. First of all, python.exe isn't *on* the PATH on Windows unless you put it there yourself.
It gets on the PATH with ActivePython <wink>. I'd recommend that the python.org Python installer do the same, but I seem to remember MvL (and others?) stating their preference not to do so (don't recall why).
In any case, I'd say it is extremely *common* for Windows users to put the Python install dir on their PATH -- just as it is common for Windows Perl and Ruby users to put the interpreter dir on their PATH. I'd then say that the obvious place to put user scripts installed via distutils is that same directory.
Well, I don't think so. It *may* be common for windows users who use the command line ;-), but I would guess that's a minority anyway. Even though I *use* the command line, I've never put python.exe on my PATH. It's easier to type 'myscript' or 'myscript.py' than 'python myscript.py' anyway. Then, I have multiple versions installed on my machine, and to select between 2.3.5, 2.4.1, and the CVS version I can always use 'py23 myscript.py', 'py24 myscript.py', 'py myscript.py' and 'py_d myscript.py' - the latter to run it with the debug compiled CVS version. I had created batchfiles py23.bat and so on which specify the directory of the python.exe or python_d.exe files. And this also explains why I'm still waiting for the extented version of the '-m' command line option and did not bother to put the PythonXY\Scripts directory on the PATH - I would loose the ability to easily switch versions. Thomas