Any way to not create .pyc files?

[Lonnie Princehouse]

> You didn't really describe the nature of the problem.  Perhaps the whole
> .pyc thing is a bit of a red herring, and the real problem lies
> elsewhere?  What are the actual symptoms of your problem?

Yes, the .pyc thing could be a red herring.  I was hoping to find an
easy way to disable them to see if it mysteriously solved the problem.

I apologize in advance: This is not going to be a satisfying answer.
:(

All that I know about the problem comes second-hand from the admins who
encountered it.
They didn't save any tracebacks or error messages or even screenshots
(really helpful, I know).

At one point last week, users started reporting that they were
encountering problems running our Python application (the one that uses
the package on the network drive).  The admins noticed that lots of
.pyc files had been inadvertantly created when someone with write
access had run the application.  The admins deleted all of the .pyc
files, and users were once again able to run the application.
I suspect this hadn't come up before because very few people have write
access, and those who do are not usually users.  I don't know the
nature of the problems encountered.

I have tried to recreate a scenario wherein .pyc files cause a problem
(mostly by going through permutations of file permissions and remapping
drives), but with no luck.   I have asked the admins to intentionally
recreate the situation so I can get more information, but it may take
days for that to happen.  I don't have write access to the network
drive, so I can't do it myself.   I'll post a follow-up when (if) I get
more information.