Is there any way to make Python play well with stow?

[Tim Bradshaw]

tfb+google at tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw) wrote in message news:<fbc0f5d1.0406011130.2bc049d0 at posting.google.com>...
> I'd like to be able to install python with stow, and then to install
> various modules which use distutils, also with stow.  This currently
> pretty much won't work, because Python chases symlinks to set
> sys.prefix, which means that the site path gets set to the `true'
> location rather than the one with all the links.  This means that
> Python won't find modules you install with stow, unless you glue the
> linky site directory into sys.path.  Doing this is OK for
> applications, but it means that things like distutils break if there
> are modules which depend on other modules which you've installed,
> because it won't find those modules.

> [and so on]

About 5 minutes after posting this I discovered PYTHONHOME, which
completely stops all the intuiting sys.prefix stuff.  I feel like a
fool now, and more so since posting via google means I couldn't even
point out my idiocy until today.

--tim