Gordon McMillan wrote:
[JimA]
Think about multiple packages in multiple zip files. The zip files store file directories. That means we would need a sys.zippath to search the zip files. I don't want another PYTHONPATH phenomenon.
What if sys.path looked like: [DirImporter('.'), ZlibImporter('c:/python/stdlib.pyz'), ...]
Well, that changes the current meaning of sys.path.
I suggest that archive files MUST be put into a known directory.
No way. Hard code a directory? Overwrite someone else's Python "standalone"? Write to a C: partition that is deliberately sized to hold nothing but Windows? Make network installations impossible?
Ooops. I didn't mean a known directory you couldn't change. But I did mean a directory you shouldn't change. But you are right. The directory should be configurable. But I would still like to see a highly encouraged directory. I don't yet have a good design for this. Anyone have ideas on an official way to find library files? I think a Python library file is a Good Thing, but it is not useful if the archive can't be found. I am thinking of a busy SysAdmin with someone nagging him/her to install Python. SysAdmin doesn't want another headache. What if Python becomes popular and users want it on Unix and PC's? More work! There should be a standard way to do this that just works and is dumb-stupid-simple. This is a Python promotion issue. Yes everyone here can make sys.path work, but that is not the point.
The official Windows solution is stuff in registry about app paths and such. Putting the dlls in the exe's directory is a workaround which works and is more managable than the official solution.
I agree completely.
We should also have the ability to append archive files to the executable or a shared library assuming the OS allows this
That's a handy trick on Windows, but it's got nothing to do with Python.
It also works on Linux. I don't know about other systems.
Flexibility. You can put Christian's favorite Einstein quote here too.
I hope we can still have ease of use with all this flexibility. As I said, we need to promote Python. Jim Ahlstrom