[issue33944] Deprecate and remove pth files

[Ionel Cristian Mărieș]

Ionel Cristian Mărieș <contact at ionelmc.ro> added the comment:

On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 1:31 AM Barry A. Warsaw <report at bugs.python.org>
wrote:
> Your sudo may not be my sudo. :)  Let’s say I update my Ubuntu desktop
and a new version of package with a pth breaks.
> Maybe I didn’t even know I was doing that, via automated updates, or
management portal, etc.
> Now a poor user who depends on this has their code break.  How do *they*
debug the problem?

Well that's easy:

* update my Ubuntu desktop -> stuff breaks -> rollback/downgrade
* automated updates -> stuff breaks -> stop using them, and learn lesson ;)
* management portal -> stuff breaks -> complain to sysadmin

Desktop users don't need to debug problems, devs/sysadmins do. They have
sudo.

> FWIW, `sudo pip install` should just be banned IMHO :).

Lets also ban ctypes and threads right? :)

> For sure.  But here’s the thing: you need to know *which* pth file is
problematic.  Which means you have to debug the entire startup process
where pth files are loaded.

How many pth files could one have? 2-3 ... 5 at most. Just `locate .pth`
and rename the biggest one till the problem goes away.

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue33944>
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