[issue33944] Deprecate and remove pth files

[Chris Billington]

Chris Billington <chrisjbillington at gmail.com> added the comment:

coverage.py's documentation mentions:

> The sitecustomize.py technique is cleaner, but may involve modifying an existing sitecustomize.py, since there can be only one. If there is no sitecustomize.py already, you can create it in any directory on the Python path.

> The .pth technique seems like a hack, but works, and is documented behavior. On the plus side, you can create the file with any name you like so you don’t have to coordinate with other .pth files. On the minus side, you have to create the file in a system-defined directory, so you may need privileges to write it.

This brings to mind the transition of many programs from using a single config file or startup script to using a directory of config/startup files parsed/executed in alphabetical order. Would a sitecustomize.d/ directory (with files within it executed in alphabetical order) as a replacement for executable code in .pth files be an improvement on the status quo?

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<https://bugs.python.org/issue33944>
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