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

[Jan Claeys]

Op zondag 13-01-2008 om 10:45 uur [tijdzone +0100], schreef Christian
Heimes:
> Gregory P. Smith wrote:
> > My main suggestion was going to be the ability to turn it off as you already
> > mentioned.  However, please consider leaving it off by default to avoid
> > problems for installed python scripts importing user supplied code.  For
> > shared hosting environments where this becomes really useful users can
> > easily add the -s (or whatever flag is chosen) to their programs
> > themselves.  I don't know what that'd mean on windows where #! lines don't
> > exist.  Yet another file extension to imply the flag (yuck)?  A .cmd wrapper
> > script to run python with the flag (ugh)?
> 
> So you prefer to make the per use site-package directory an opt-in
> option? I prefer it as an opt-out option. It's enabled by default,
> unless the user disables the feature with -s.

One possible issue with enabling it by default could be that
less-experienced users can accidentally break the system configuration
tools written in python used by several linux distros (Ubuntu, Gentoo,
Fedora/Red Hat, ...).

There should be a way for distro developers to make sure the users local
'site-packages' is *not* used when running those tools.

I'd rather have to set/uncomment an environment variable on my system
than having 100 "normal" users break their systems accidentally...   ;-)

-- 
Jan Claeys