[Distutils] What is the reason for requiring that an explicitly set egg-install installation is in the path?

[Jim Fulton]

If I explicitly specify an installation directory, for example, by
specifying:

   [install]
   install_lib = ~/py-lib
   install_scripts = ~/bin

in setup.cfg, setuptools gives me an error is the specified
lib dir isn't in the Python path.

Why is this?  Is this for my protection? If so, I don't need a path
nanny. :)  I can understand this, to some degree, if --prefix is used,
but if I specifically set an install location, setuptools should trust
that I know what the heck I'm doing.

Jim

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