[Tutor] Help Noob Question

[Chris “Kwpolska” Warrick]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 2:17 AM, Alan Gauld <alan.gauld at btinternet.com> wrote:
> On 27/03/14 21:01, Chris “Kwpolska” Warrick wrote:
>> Painful? How painful can `cd Desktop` be? Certainly less than `D:`
>> followed by `cd PythonProjects`…
>
>
> Because the desktop is hardly ever anywhere near where the cmd prompt lands
> you.

I just tested on my Windows 7 box.  It got me to C:\Users\Kwpolska.
`cd Desktop` is enough.
I also tested on a third-party’s XP box.  C:\Documents and
Settings\[username].  `cd Desktop`, too (though it’s
locale-dependent).

Does not look far from the desktop, does it?

Well, the only places where this might not work are Administrator
prompts in Vista-and-newer (which there is NO REAL REASON to use for
Python) — or possibly some ultra-crazy corporate environments (but you
should not be learning Python there — and if you are working there,
you know how to work with the command line/Windows/source control
already).  Or, of course, systems where you changed something and it
is not your profile directory — but it’s your doing.  So, it’s pretty
much the home directory everywhere you should be concerned with.

> you have to remember where it is. There is no ~ shortcut in Windows.
> On my system that means typing something like:
>
> C:\Documents and Settings\alang\Desktop

or just cd %USERPROFILE%.  Different drives would make you jump to
%HOMEDRIVE% and then to %HOMEPATH%.

>>
>>
>> Can't you make a symlink pointing to Desktop? (in C:\ or anywhere else)
>
>
> You could, and that would help a little. But the problem on Windows is that
> what appears on the Desktop *display* is an amalgam of (up to 3?) different
> folders in the file system. So just because you see an icon on the 'desktop'
> doesn't mean you actually know which folder it is in.

But, for user-created files, it always goes to %USERPROFILE%/Desktop.

> Secondly this correlation between desktop folder and desktop display means
> that's a bad place to store python files since every file you create will
> add to the clutter of icons on your display. In my python projects file I
> have over 100 small test files. That would be a
> lot of icons messing up my screen.

Create a folder on the desktop, or even in the home directory.  A much
nicer place than the drive root — and a much modern way to store it
(drive root sounds DOS-y)

-- 
Chris “Kwpolska” Warrick <http://kwpolska.tk>
PGP: 5EAAEA16
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