[Python-Dev] Second draft: PEP397: Python launcher for Windows

[Mark Hammond]

On 24/03/2011 1:20 PM, Michael Foord wrote:
> On 24/03/2011 00:44, Dj Gilcrease wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Mark
>> Hammond<mhammond at skippinet.com.au> wrote:
>>> If you guys (or anyone) would like to agree on some precise rules for
>>> both
>>> the location of the config file and its contents and express this as
>>> a patch
>>> to the PEP text, I have no problem supporting it in the implementations.
>>> I'd like to insist that the format of the config file was such that the
>>> GetPrivateProfileString() Windows function could be used to extract
>>> the data
>>> (eg, only '=' can be used to separate the name/value pair,
>>> case-insensitive
>>> and no support for string interpolation) as I have no interest in
>>> writing my
>>> own config file parser in C :)
>> In the user directory much like TortoiseHG adds a murcurial.ini file
>> to the users directory for basic globa config the launch could look
>> for a python.ini there and use to to add known paths or version
>> overrides on a user by user basis.
>
> A single global location (for shared installs) or a single per-user
> location for per-user installs would seem to be sensible if the config
> file route is chosen.

My concern with that would be that an administrator may install Python, 
but the user may not have write access to that global location, leaving 
that user unable to customize the launcher.  OTOH, that is how things 
work on Unix today - such users could not change what /usr/bin/python 
points to).  Always using a per-user location would mean there is no 
opportunity to have global settings, but it is unclear which is the 
lesser of 2 evils.  Supporting both might even be reasonable if the 
rules are very straightforward.

I'd still very much like to see the change to the wording of the PEP to 
describe this feature though, otherwise I fear different people will 
have different assumptions about exactly what it does and how it does it...

Cheers,

Mark