[Distutils] pythonv: let's also make sure the standard Python install includes an "isolated" python

[Mark Sienkiewicz]

Fred Drake wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>   
>> We don't have to make it look so Windows-like, though. We could
>> use something more cheerful such as 'python.nothisisnotthedirectory'.
>>     
>
> Yes, but... the sad part is that a turd has to be added, or the name
> changed in even less satisfactory ways.  Case-senselessness is still
> senseless.
>
> /me mourns the loss of case-sense in "pop" operating systems.
>   

Actually, "loss" is not quite what happened here.  Unix-derived systems 
(Unix, Linux, *BSD) are somewhat unusual in having case-sensitive file 
systems.  Of the alphabet soup of operating systems that I've used, I 
can remember case sensitive files systems in the Unix-like systems, Plan 
9, and Apple II DOS -- but the Apple II doesn't have lower case letters 
on the keyboard/display, so I'm not sure it counts.

I used to think that case-sensitive identifiers are a good idea, but I 
now think that it is just too error-prone to use identifiers that differ 
only in case.  Also, it's not portable... :)

b.t.w.  The extension is ".cfg" because RT-11 stored file names in a 
character set called "Radix 50" that could pack 3 characters into a 16 
bit word.  CP/M pretty obviously copied RT-11, MS-DOS copied CP/M, and 
MS Windows was originally a GUI framework for MS-DOS.  Meanwhile, Unix 
initially ran on other DEC systems, so a lot of early Unix users had 
contact with RT-11 or its descendants, and re-used some of the same 
conventions.

So, "We use .cfg because we have calling it that since 1970..."  
Interesting, but perhaps not a particularly compelling reason. :)

 >sniff< - what's that smell?  Oh yeah -- old farts...