[Python-Dev] Python install layout and the PATH on win32

[Tim Golden]

On 21/03/2012 23:03, Paul Moore wrote:
> On 21 March 2012 22:43, Mark Hammond<skippy.hammond at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On 22/03/2012 1:22 AM, Lindberg, Van wrote:
>>>
>>> Mark, MAL, Martin, Tarek,
>>>
>>> Could you comment on this?
>>
>>
>> Eric is correct - tools will be broken by this change.  However, people seem
>> willing to push forward on this and accept such breakage as the necessary
>> cost.
>>
>> MAL, in his followup, asks what the advantages are of such a change. I've
>> actually been asking for the same thing in this thread and the only real
>> answer I've got is "consistency".  So while I share MAL's concerns, people
>> seem willing to push forward on this anyway, without the benefits having
>> been explained.
>>
>> IOW, this isn't the decision I would make, but I think I've already made
>> that point a number of times in this thread.  Beyond that, there doesn't
>> seem much for me to add...
>
> I agree on all points here. I don't understand quite why backward
> compatibility is being treated so lightly here. But equally, I've made
> my points and have little further to add.

Well I've gone through (and deleted) three draft contributions
to the ideas proposed here over the last week or so. In short,
I'm with Paul & Mark. The OP seems far more casual towards
breakage than would be the case if, eg, code were involved.
If this had been proposed for Python 3k I'd have said: go
for it - why not? But for this to drop in now means, as
others have said, that I'll have to adjust various small
tools which assume the location of python.exe according
to the (minor) version I'm running.

I can certainly cope with the change and without too much
difficulty, but I'm afraid it does smack of a too foolish
consistency. And it's not as though I've seen crowds of
people chiming in with a me-too! The only person strongly
supporting the change (as distinct from not opposing it)
is VanL, who appears to need it for his particular setup.

In short, I'm -1 but I'm not going to storm off in a huff
if it goes ahead, merely be a little bewildered at why this
was needed by anyone else and exactly what real-world problem
it's solving for thousands of Windows Python users.

TJG