[Python-Dev] Fixing #7175: a standard location for Python config files

[Fred Drake]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 6:18 AM, Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> wrote:
> Didn't we have this discussion when per-user libraries came up?
> Shouldn't we be using a subdirectory of that location? We ruin the risk
> of Python becoming distributed so finely it becomes impossible to change
> things, what with per-user libraries, per-version shared binaries,
> per-user-per-version library configuration files and the rest.

Yes, we did.  That was in the context of some people's desire for a
per-user site-packages directory, and the result is that we're now
saddled with a per-user site-packages directory.

The structure determined there was the same sort of half-way
version-specific mess as so many others are: libraries are
per-python-version, and scripts are installed cowboy-style (whoever
got there last, wins).

Perhaps user configuration belongs in ~/.local/, or ~/.local/python/
(with attendant Windows & Mac OS noises); I don't really care where it
lands, because right now we just have a mess.  Getting it "right" with
respect to Window's "roaming" notion and how people expect to work
with it is... unlikely.  Picking a place is better than not, so we
know where to find things.  But that's all it buys us.


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.    <fdrake at gmail.com>
"A storm broke loose in my mind."  --Albert Einstein