[Python-ideas] Possible Enhancement to py Launcher - set default

[Paul Moore]

There are a few different points here:

1. There's no relationship between pip and the py launcher - they are
separate tools/projects. Any co-operation in terms of file locations
would have to be a result of common standards. Those would normally be
platform standards, not Python ones.
2. On Windows, pip.ini is in $env:APPDATA\pip, not ~/pip. Are you
confusing Windows and Unix conventions?
3. $env:APPDATA and $env:LOCALAPPDATA have different functions, and
the choice between the two needs to be made on a case by case basis.
However, the difference between the two is subtle, and frankly is
probably lost on Unix developers. So which gets used is somewhat
random, in practice. But it does matter, in certain environments. I
*think* the different usages here are correct (although on the systems
I work on, the distinction doesn't matter in practice so I can't
confirm that).
4. Python projects tend to actually be *better* at following Windows
platform conventions than other applications (which often use the Unix
convention of putting stuff under ~) in my experience. What looks like
inconsistency is sometimes (not in the case of py vs pip, admittedly)
just people transferring expectations from one platform to another (or
worse, transferring expectations from Unix programs naively ported to
Windows over to other Windows programs).
5. Windows history for "where you should store your application
config" is a mess - inconsistencies, changes in recommendations, and
use cases not catered for, abound. So even in the ideal situation,
what is right now was probably wrong 5 years ago. And will likely be
wrong 5 years from now (although we can hope...)

But +1 on a world where config data all gets stored consistently. Oh,
and can I have a pony? :-)

Paul


On 6 February 2018 at 14:22, Eric Fahlgren <ericfahlgren at gmail.com> wrote:
> My only request for change would be to consolidate the various tools'
> behavior wrt their .ini file locations.  Pip, for example, wants the file in
> ~/pip/pip.ini, while py.exe (on Windows) wants its py.ini in $LOCALAPPDATA.
> If they were all in a common location (or the same file with separate
> sections), that would make life a tiny bit easier.
>
> Eric
>
> On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 3:30 AM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm reluctant to expand the feature set of the launcher in this
>> direction. It's written in C, and tightly focused on being a
>> lightweight launcher. Adding code to manage user options and persist
>> them to the py.ini file would be a non-trivial overhead, as well as
>> being hard to maintain (because C code and text handling :-)) It's not
>> that hard to manage an ini file, and if anyone wants a friendlier
>> interface, writing such a thing in Python as a standalone utility
>> would be easy, and far more robust, flexible and maintainable than
>> adding it to the launcher directly (you could even add a GUI if you
>> like ;-)).
>>
>> Conceded, I'm saying this from the perspective of writing and
>> maintaining the code, and not from the UX/UI perspective. If someone
>> wants to add this feature to the launcher, I don't mind, but
>> *personally* I don't think it's worth it.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> On 6 February 2018 at 10:10, Alex Walters <tritium-list at sdamon.com> wrote:
>> > I actually like the idea of being able to modify the py.ini file to set
>> > the
>> > default from py.exe.  That seams like the most intuitive thing to me.
>>
>> >> From: Python-ideas [mailto:python-ideas-bounces+tritium-
>> >>
>> >> Maybe the Windows installer should offer to set/change that, especially
>> >> when installing a non-release version?
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