[Python-ideas] Add appdirs module to stdlib

[Paul Moore]

On 2 September 2015 at 06:57, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> A standard library API would shift the emphasis slightly, and take
> into account the perspective of the *beginning* programmer, who may
> have only first learned about the command line and files and
> directories in the course of learning Python, and is now venturing
> into the realm of designing full desktop (and mobile?) applications.

Agreed. In this case, the focus should be on providing "correct"
cross-platform defaults, and assisting (and encouraging) users to
understand the choices and constraints applicable to other platforms,
which may not be relevant on theirs.

This may feel like a nuisance for single-platform developers (a
Unix-only program doesn't need to care about local or roaming
preferences, because they don't have the concept of a domain account),
so it's important to get the defaults right so that people who don't
need to care, don't have to. But the options should be accessible, so
that people can learn to make the right choices (for example, pip puts
preferences in the roaming profile, but the cache in the local
profile, because you don't want to bloat the roaming profile with a
cache, but you do want the user's preferences to be available on all
the machines they use).

Paul