[Python-Dev] Python install layout and the PATH on win32
VanL
van.lindberg at gmail.com
Tue Mar 20 15:27:51 CET 2012
Germane to this discussion, I reached out for feedback. Most people
didn't care about the issue, or were slightly inclined to have it be
uniform across platforms.
As Terry mentioned, I think that long-term uniformity will benefit
everybody down the line, and that is the way to go.
The most interesting feedback, though, related to moving the Python exe
and placing it on the PATH. I got one argument back that I thought was
persuasive here: We want things to 'just work.' Specifically, the
following sequence of events should not require any fiddling on Windows:
1. Install python.
2. Open up a shell and run "python"
3. Use pip or easy_install to install regetron (a package that installs
an executable file).
4. Run regetron.
For step #2, the python exe needs to be on the PATH. For steps 3 and 4,
the binaries directory needs to be on the PATH.
In hearing from a couple people who teach python to beginners, this is a
substantial hurdle - the first thing they need to do is to edit their
environment to add these directories to the PATH.
This is orthogonal to the Scripts/bin issue, but I thought it should be
brought up.
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