[Python-Dev] pkgutil, pkg_resource and Python 3.0 name space packages

[Michael Foord]

Nick Coghlan wrote:
> Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven wrote:
>   
>> -On [20080108 17:07], Christian Heimes (lists at cheimes.de) wrote:
>>     
>>> Python's _winreg module and pywin32 expose several functions to get the
>>> paths from the registry but I don't think it has a simple function like
>>> get_mydocuments().
>>>       
>> Careful with the name though. Microsoft Windows Vista did away with 'My
>> Documents & Settings'. It is now C:\Users.
>>
>> So you get:
>>
>> C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Local\    (former Local Settings\Application Data)
>> C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Roaming\  (former Application Data)
>> C:\Users\<name>\Documents         (former My Documents)
>> C:\Users\<name>\Music             (former My Music)
>> C:\Users\<name>\Pictures          (former My Pictures)
>> C:\Users\<name>\Videos            (former My Videos)
>>
>>     
>
>   

Note today's Coding Horror blog entry: "Don't Pollute User Space"

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001032.html

 Keep your dirty, filthy paws out of my personal user space!

Take a look in your Documents folder right now. Go ahead. Look. Do you 
see any files or folders in there that you personally did not create? If 
so, you've been victimized. Applications should never create or modify 
anything in your documents folder without your permission.
{snip...]
If applications need to store shared files, that's what the \AppData and 
\Application Data folders are for.

Sentiments I agree with...

Michael
http://www.manning.com/foord

> Somewhat off topic, but hooray, it looks like someone at MS rediscovered 
> the command line and why "Long and Wordy Names with lots of spaces" are 
> really annoying. Easier access to the application data directory is a 
> good thing too.
>
> I guess moving to Vista wouldn't be all bad then ;)
>
> To get marginally back on topic, I would actually prefer to have a 
> function like os.gethomedir() that takes on optional user name. (I don't 
> want it enough to write a patch to make it happen though)
>
> Cheers,
> Nick.
>
>