[Python-Dev] [Python-3000] Reminder: last alphas next Wednesday 07-May-2008

[glyph at divmod.com]

On 11:45 pm, guido at python.org wrote:
>I like this, except one issue: I really don't like the .local
>directory. I don't see any compelling reason why this needs to be
>~/.local/lib/ -- IMO it should just be ~/lib/. There's no need to hide
>it from view, especially since the user is expected to manage this
>explicitly.

I've previously given a spirited defense of ~/.local on this list ( 
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2008-January/076173.html ) 
among other places.

Briefly, "lib" is not the only directory participating in this 
convention; you've also got the full complement of other stuff that 
might go into an installation like /usr/local.  So, while "lib" might 
annoy me a little, "bin etc games include lib lib32 man sbin share src" 
is going to get ugly pretty fast, especially if this is what comes up in 
Finder or Nautilus or Explorer every time I open a window.  If it's 
going to be a visible directory on the grounds that this is a Python- 
specific thing that is explicitly *not* participating in a convention 
with other software, then please call it "~/Python" or something.

Am I the only guy who finds software that insists on visible, fixed 
files in my home directory rude?  vmware, for example, wants a 
"~/vmware" directory, but pretty much every other application I use is 
nice enough to use dotfiles (even cedega, with a roughly-comparable-to- 
lib "applications I've installed for you" folder).

Put another way - it's trivial to make ~/.local/lib show up by 
symlinking ~/lib, but you can't make ~/lib disappear, and lots of 
software ends up looking at ~.