[Python-ideas] Add a site.cfg to keep a persistent list of paths

[Doug Hellmann]

On Oct 21, 2010, at 7:21 AM, Paul Moore wrote:

> On 21 October 2010 00:35, Floris Bruynooghe <flub at devork.be> wrote:
> 
>> I've read your and Ian's responses and still don't understand what
>> setup.py develop brings to the party which can't be done with simple
>> PYTHONPATH.
> 
> I'm glad it's not just me!

Using develop does more than just modify the import path.

It also generates the meta data, such as entry points, and re-generates any console scripts defined by my setup.py so that they point to the version of code in the sandbox.  After I run develop, any Python process on the system using the same python interpreter will run the code in my sandbox instead of the version "installed" in site-packages.  That includes any of the command line programs or plugins defined in my setup.py, and even applies to processes that don't run as my user.  

I use these features every day, since our application depends on a few daemons that run as root (it's a system management app, so it needs root privileges to do almost anything interesting).

Doug