Changing 'Scripts/*.exe'

[2QdxY4RzWzUUiLuE at potatochowder.com]

On 2022-10-04 at 14:55:36 +1300,
dn <PythonList at DancesWithMice.info> wrote:

> On 04/10/2022 14.10, Meredith Montgomery wrote:
> > ram at zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
> > 
> >> Meredith Montgomery <mmontgomery at levado.to> writes:
> >>> Wouldn't it be great if it were portable by default?
> >>
> >>   I think under Windows there is a division of software
> >>   suggested by Microsoft, a division of software into
> >>   executable code and data (data may change in time).
> >>
> >>   The executable code is supposed to rest under
> >>   "C:\Program Files" the contents of which cannot be
> >>   modified by user processes easily. Program configuration
> >>   can be stored below "AppData" in the user directory.
> >>   It is supposed to be more secure when executable code
> >>   cannot be modified easily by user processes.
> >>
> >>   So far, Python has decided to ignore this and install
> >>   everything under AppData as I understand it. So one 
> >>   gets neither the security of "Program Files" nor the
> >>   possibility to move it to another directory easily.
> > 
> > Interesting.  I like portable things.  You copy from one place to
                                                   ^
Copy what?  That's the crux of it.

On vintage (1980s? 1990s? way before OS X, anyway) Mac OS, I could copy
an alias (Mac's version of a symbolic link) to a floppy disk, walk (IOW,
"transfer via sneaker net") that alias to another Mac on the network,
and open *the original file* from that other Mac.  (I could even move
the file to another folder on the original Mac, but that didn't mean
much, because those old file systems were entirely flat (directories and
folders were an illusion maintained by the Finder).)

Permissions?  We don't need no stinkin' permissions!  ;-)

> > another and it just runs.  As it should.  Things should be simple.
> 
> +1

I like simple, portable things, too.  But this kind of simplicity
(applications looking in known locations for certain files) and this
kind of portability (allowing users to move those files) are at oods.
And that's before we consider security.

Also, [almost] by definition, Python virtual environments really blur
the lines between user, system, public, private, programs, and data.