[Python-Dev] Deprecate PEP 370 Per user site-packages directory?

[Christian Heimes]

On 2018-01-13 19:04, Random832 wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 13, 2018, at 12:06, Christian Heimes wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> PEP 370 [1] was my first PEP that got accepted. I created it exactly one
>> decade and two days ago for Python 2.6 and 3.0. Back then we didn't have
>> virtual environment support in Python. Ian Bicking had just started to
>> create the virtualenv project a couple of months earlier.
>>
>> Fast forward 10 years...
>>
>> Nowadays Python has venv in the standard library. The user-specific
>> site-packages directory is no longer that useful. I would even say it's
>> causing more trouble than it's worth. For example it's common for system
>> script to use "#!/usr/bin/python3" shebang without -s or -I option.
>>
>> I propose to deprecate the feature and remove it in Python 4.0.
> 
> Where would pip install --user put packages, and how would one run scripts that require those packages? Right now these things Just Work; I've never had to learn how to use virtual environments.

I see two option:

1) "pip install --user" is no longer supported. You have to learn how to
use virtual envs. It's really easy: "python3 -m venv path; path/bin/pip
install package".
2) "pip install --user" automatically creates or uses a custom virtual
(~/.pip/virtualenv-$VERSION/) and links entry points to ~/.local/bin.

Christian