[Python-Dev] Python install layout and the PATH on win32 (Rationale part 1: Regularizing the layout)

[Brian Curtin]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 13:57, VanL <van.lindberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Honestly, I didn't expect that much resistance. None of the people I talked
> to in person even cared, or if they did, they thought that consistency was a
> benefit. But now that virtualenvs are going in in 3.3, I see this as the
> last good chance to change this.

I was one of these people, first finding out just about the
Scripts/bin change, and my thought was JFDI. The rest of it seems fine
to me - I say let's go for it.

>> Personally, my main concerns are around procedure and policy. The more the
>> discussion goes on, the more I feel that there should be a PEP to capture
>> the details of the debate clearly. Too much is getting lost in the noise.
>> And I think you should provide a clear statement of why this issue is
>> important enough to justify violating the backward compatibility policies.
>> As Mark said (I think it was Mark...) if this had been proposed for 3.0, it
>> would have been fine. Now we're at 3.2 with 3.3 close to release, and it
>> just seems too late to be worth the risk. One plus point about your posting
>> this separately. It's made me think through the issue in a bit more detail,
>> and I'm now a solid -1 on the proposal.
>
>
> I have been trying at various PyCons and in various conversations to move
> this for years. No one cares. The current urgency is driven by pyvenv -
> changes now will be much, much easier than changes later.
>
> Again, I am happy to write a PEP. If I were to summarize (on this issue
> only):
>
> 1. The current backwards compatibility hit is minimal; I would be happy to
> contact and provide patches to the four packages I have found (and anyone
> else who wants one). Backwards compatibility in the future will probably be
> harder to deal with.
> 2. There are advantages to cross-platform consistency and to
> virtualenv-based development. I believe that these will grow in the future.
> 3. Most people won't care. To the extent that people notice, I think they
> will appreciate the consistency.

The virtualenv point, to me, is a strong one. I think we have an
opportunity right now to make an adjustment, otherwise we're locked in
again.