[Python-Dev] Python install layout and the PATH on win32 (Rationale part 1: Regularizing the layout)

[VanL]

On Friday, March 23, 2012 at 1:35 PM, PJ Eby wrote: 
> Tool developers are going "meh" about your proposal because it doesn't actually solve any problems for them: they still have to support the old layout, and if their code already uses distutils' facilities for obtaining paths, there's nothing they gain from the change.

Three notes. FIrst, distutils.cfg doesn't always work because it is centered around the idea of set paths that are the same each time - which doesn't always work with virtualenvs. Further, a number of tools find that it doesn't work (haven't seen it myself, but look at the comments in pypm's installer). So yes, I patch python.

Second, most installer tools don't follow distutils.cfg. Even if that helps for python setup.py install, the other tools are still broken when you want to specify a layout. That is why changing the defaults is the only effective way to make this change - because the defaults drive what is actually implemented. I know, because I have looked at and patched these tools to make them work.

Third, there are some tool makers going meh - because you are right, this is not a problem they have. This is a problem associated with using those tools. And regardless of there being other ways to do it, including your 'dump it in a directory' method, development in virtualenvs is convenient, widespread, and on the rise. Given that pyvenv will go into 3.3, it will be the 'one obvious way to do it' - making going-forward cross-platform compatibility a positive good. Again I note the example of buildout.

And fourth, (because nobody expects the spanish inquisition), isn't the gratuitous difference a (small but) obvious wart? Does anybody positively like 'Scripts'? The most common comment I have received when talking to people off this list has been, 'yeah, that was always sort of weird.'
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