[Python-Dev] PEP 370, open questions

[Christian Heimes]

glyph at divmod.com wrote:
> My suggestion would be to have *both* ~/.local *and* ~/Library/Python be 
> honored on the Mac, because there really isn't much harm in doing so. 
> Perhaps it would make sense for non-framework builds to not honor 
> ~/Library/Python, but I am pretty certain, based on experience fielding 
> requests from confused users, that framework builds should still honor 
> ~/.local/lib/python.../site-packages.

I'm taking your suggestion under consideration: ~/.local for standard
and framework builds and ~/Library/Python for framework builds only.

> In any event, the really important thing from my perspective is that the 
> PEP should explain how this very common use-case for per-user 
> installation of libraries can be accomplished on each of the "big three" 
> platforms.  This explanation should be put somewhere that users can 
> easily find it when they are building libraries.
> 
> I don't know what the "right way" to do this on Windows is though, so I 
> can't offer much help there.  Something to do with MinGW and intense 
> suffering, I would guess.

Good point, but is it the job of the PEP to explain such problems in
detail? The PEP should consider the problem but the explanation belongs
to a tutorial - IMHO.

>> * The patch also adds a usecustomize hook to site. Is it useful and
>>  should it stay?
> 
> Should this be "usercustomize"?  I thought it was a typo but I see the 
> same typo in the PEP.  I have often wished for something like this for 
> debugging, and it might have other uses, but there should be a caution 
> against abuse :).

Yeah! I've a tendency to drag typos through my code because I heavily
use copy 'n paste. A while ago I copied a typo from C code into the
Python unit tests and later into the docs, too

Christian