[Python-Dev] Distutils2 scripts (original) (raw)

Tim Golden mail at timgolden.me.uk
Tue Oct 12 20:41:04 CEST 2010

On 12/10/2010 7:17 PM, R. David Murray wrote:

On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:33:52 +0200, =?windows-1252?Q?=22Martinv=2EL=F6wis=22?=<martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:

So as well as pysetup.py/.exe I would like pysetup-3.2.py / .exe on Windows please. (I'd really like a python-3.2.exe as well.)

Please submit a patch to the installer, then. I'm still skeptical about adding PATH, because a) I find that fairly invasive, and despise long paths myself (it hurts my eyes to see the list of directories that VS adds to MY path)

Assume, for the sake of the argument, that we patched the MSI so it (optionally) added the installing version of Python (and, optionally ./scripts) to the PATH. What, then, do we do with existing PATH entries which point to older/other Python installations? Option (a) says: clear them all out, because it's meaningless having more than one entry with a python.exe on it and the one we want must be this one because we've just ticked a box to say so. Option (b) says: don't mess with other entries on the PATH; it's not done.

That said, the current installer switches an APPPATH entry and changes -- optionally -- the file associations to point to the installing version, so there is a precedent for ditching previous data.

I'm actually +0 on the idea. An expert user who's trying to juggle different Python versions should be able to sort himself out. A naive user can use Start > Run > Python to get the current version (thanks to the APPPATH) and can use "program.py arg1 arg2" on the console to run program.py with the associated version. (Notwithstanding the bug which doesn't correctly redirect output via file associations)

But all this is pie in the sky until someone actually integrates such a change to the MSI. Martin's clearly not going to since he doesn't like the idea. I'm actually +0.5 on including a script in tools\scripts (or wherever) which, when run, would set as current the version of Python which ran it. I have a roughly working version of such a thing; the problem is getting it to work with all the different Python versions and all the different Windows versions we support.

TJG

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