[Python-Dev] PEP 250: Summary of comments

[Moore, Paul]

From: Fred L. Drake, Jr. [mailto:fdrake@acm.org]
> There's one aspect that doesn't appear to have been addressed for
> Unix: there are two reasonable values for extinstallpath.  In
> multi-architecture installations, where the Python portions of the
> library are shared among architectures, there are two site-packages
> directories:

I agree entirely. I have no knowledge of the issues on Unix, and hence I can
make no comment.

As far as I am concerned, I feel very strongly that this should go in for
Windows (where I believe that the current use of a "bare" sys.prefix is
wrong), but I have no view at all on other platforms. My PEP was originally
entitled "Using site-packages on Windows" - I am happy if the scope gets
extended, but don't rely on me to do it - and please don't let the key point
(for me) which is fixing Windows, get sidetracked by issues for Unix, where
(as far as I know) the current status quo is perfectly acceptable to the
majority of users.

So I'd vote to leave sys.extinstallpath undefined except on Windows, and
leave the other platforms for a new PEP.

Paul.