Dumb Newbie Question

[Scott Weisel]

I'm trying to set up Python so I can import the programs that I wrote.  I
want to modify $PYTHONPATH so the directory with my programs is in the path
but I'm not sure how.

I thought I might be able to modify sys.path like this
sys.path = sys.path + "c:\\python16\\programs 
but I'm getting a TypeError stating "illegal argument type for built-in
operation."

Any suggestions would be appreciated
-Scott