[Python-Dev] Order that site-packages is added to sys.path

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "GW" == Greg Ward <gward@python.net> writes:

    GW> Looong ago, I tried to persuade Guido that giving the
    GW> Distutils the power to override standard library modules
    GW> would, on rare occasions, be a good and useful thing.  (Yet
    GW> another idea stolen from Perl's MakeMaker, which can do
    GW> precisely that.  Sometimes, it's useful.)  Guess who won?

distutils's --root option could be used to specific a different
install directory than site-packages right?  So conceivably site.py
could prepend some directory onto sys.path, and distutils could be
coaxed into installing there rather than site-packages.  This might
provide a principled way to override Python's standard library when
you're really sure that's what you want to do.

-Barry