[Python-Dev] [python] Re: PEP 370, open questions (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Thu Jan 17 13:21:22 CET 2008

Christian Heimes wrote:

Tim Golden wrote:

Christian Heimes wrote:

I'll justify why I view Python as a roaming app. All company and university Linux boxes I've used in the past had exported $HOME via NFS. So ~/.local is roamed. I think there is a slight subtlety here: the exported NFS $HOME is more equivalent to the HOMEDRIVE/HOMEPATH which comes from the HOME directory in NT/AD. ie it is simply a share pointed to by a drive letter available wherever the user logs on. Roaming profiles actually copy the data from your network versions of USERPROFILE to the local machine [need to check they still do this; a while since I've administered this kind of setup]. The difference therefore is that installing large quantities of Python modules into a roaming profile path will involve their being copied to-and-fro on logon/logoff which, historically at least, was a known cause of slow startup/shutdown. I'll try to confirm if this is still the case. I can't comment on the matter. I've not used roaming user profiles on Windows for more than five years. Can someone with more experience shed some like on the matter?

Roaming profiles still load and save the profile on logon/logoff. I think using the home directory (or subdirectory thereof) is preferable as that can either be on a shared drive or part of the roaming profile.

Michael Foord

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