PYTHONPATH

[harrismh777]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> In my opinion, a better explanation for the
> difficulty faced by Windows users is that this is a side-effect of
> Windows starting life as a single-user operating system.

Yes, that is my opinion as well.

Windows for better or worse is plagued by "cruft" that dates back to the 
CP/M 80 and DOS days. Not just single user systems, but also 
single-threaded (or single process) systems.

When I speak of Windows design, its really a tongue in cheek thing... 
its really a matter of non-design in my view. Over the years it 
[windows] has crofted into the technical mess it is today.

In retrospect, in many ways this is why I am relatively patient with the 
Python3 development direction. While I think its non-compatibility may 
hurt in the short term, the long term goal of stream-lining the language 
will make for a much better Python future. Essentially, the python team 
said, "Look, python2 sucks... ,"  and then they went about figuring out 
what Python would look like had it been "designed" right in the first 
place. Whalla, Python3. So after years and years of practical experience 
with the language Python is getting the face lift it deserves, and is 
going to be one gorgeous lady when finished.

Windows, on the other hand, never had the humility of the Python team in 
the respect of willingness to change in the face of bloat, or cruft. 
Windows stuck it out with ultimate backward compatibility issues and a 
plethora of CP/M  DOS carry-overs that are just not helpful... not to 
mention not realizing that a desk machine can *also* be a server--!  In 
their insane attack on third party browsers their ultimate and 
quintessential design error was integrating the browser/desktop while 
designing networking as an application (needing protection from third 
parties).  They should have taken the *nix approach of integrating the 
network (no third party access to the kernel) and making the desktop an 
application. In this, gnulinux is the correct design choice (OSX does 
this as well... based on FreeBSD). Windows may come around in the 
future; if they survive.

There are many reasons for how and why Windows has usability and 
extensibility issues. At some point I expect to see Microsoft realizing 
these errors and correcting by completely redesigning their OS. This 
time around making it open and configurable. They might even get some of 
the love back... who knows.

kind regards,
m harris