[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: Tkinter on Panther?

Schollnick, Benjamin Benjamin.Schollnick at usa.xerox.com
Tue Dec 23 14:42:55 EST 2003


> > DO NOT EVER TRASH ANYTHING IN /System! EVER!
> > (small patches to known broken files are ok, though)
> 
> Jack said something similar when I asked about updating Python on 
> Panther. But...why? I would expect the OS to see the new version in 
> /Library/Frameworks and life to be good. Apparently my expectation is 
> false

Here's my view.....  It's quite simple...

The only people that guarantee what may or may not be placed into the system
areas is Apple...

So if you place a file in the system tree, one of two things may happen.

1) You overwrite a file
2) You add a file

In either case, hopefully nothing "wrong" will happen...  But if something
does go wrong, now what?

Does Apple support you, even though you have made unsupported changes?
Let alone a patch later is expecting a specific file you may have
replaced...  What does the updater do?

But now for something different, let's say the file that broke is indeed in
the system folder, it is now affecting every user.  If it had been in the
~/System tree, it would only affect the single user...

It's far safer to modify only the ~/System folders....

Plus Apple (probably) is only going to change the /System folder tree...

			- Benjamin



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