[Python-Dev] PEP: per user site-packages directory

[Christian Heimes]

glyph at divmod.com wrote:
> I think the relevant link to change here would be ~/.local.
> 
> I have personally been using the ~/.local convention for a while, and I 
> believe ~/.local/bin is where scripts should go.  Python is not the only 
> thing that can be locally installed, and the fact that it's 
> ~/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages  suggests that ~/.local has the 
> same layout as /usr (or /usr/local, for those who use that convention).

~/.local/bin or ~/bin ?

~/bin is the standard directory for user binaries. I can see how
~/.local/bin follows the idea of other directories. But ~/bin is more
convenient than ~/.local/bin. I don't want to teach users how to change
their .bashrc or .profile file for ~/.local/bin. A line like

if [ -d ~/bin ]; then
    PATH=~/bin:$PATH
fi

is in most .profile files (often commented out).

I'm proposing ~/bin for Unix (including Mac) and
%APPDATA%/Python/Scripts for Windows. The Windows installer could then
add the directory to the PATH environment and install a minimal bat file
"@C:\Python26\python.exe %*" as python26.bat, too.

Christian