On Oct 26, 2011, at 09:02 AM, Vinay Sajip wrote:
I thought Carl was saying that we use "local_prefix" as opposed to "venv_prefix", because the "local_" prefix seems logical and doesn't override "site". In a venv, local_prefix/local_exec_prefix point to the venv, otherwise they have the same values as prefix/exec_prefix. The "venv_XXX" does grate a bit, especially as we're trying to achieve a don't-know-or-care-if- I'm-in-a-venv as much as possible.
And thinking more about overriding "site" - what is a "site" anyway? It seems to be a combination of Python version, standard library and a specific set of packages (comprising in the general case include files, shared libs and extension modules) - if I installed 3 different versions of Python on my system, I would have three different sites. By that definition, a venv is really a site, albeit a pared-down one which references shared code and library where possible.
So site_prefix/site_exec_prefix don't seem unreasonable to me, or failing that, local_prefix/local_exec_prefix would be preferable to venv_prefix/venv_exec_prefix.
I agree in general with these observations. What we're currently calling "site" feels more like "system" to me, although we probably can't change that until Python 4000. One other reason I like "local" over "venv" is that "venv" isn't actually a word. While it'll probably make it easier to google, it looks fairly jarring to me. In general I try to avoid made up words and abbreviations because they are harder for non-native English speakers to use (so I've been told by some non-native English speakers). -Barry