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<div><div><span style="color: rgb(160, 160, 168); ">On Friday, March 23, 2012 at 1:35 PM, PJ Eby wrote:</span></div></div>
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Tool developers are going "meh" about your proposal because it doesn't actually solve any problems for them: they still have to support the old layout, and if their code already uses distutils' facilities for obtaining paths, there's nothing they gain from the change.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Three notes. FIrst, distutils.cfg doesn't always work because it is centered around the idea of set paths that are the same each time - which doesn't always work with virtualenvs. Further, a number of tools find that it doesn't work (haven't seen it myself, but look at the comments in pypm's installer). So yes, I patch python.</div><div><br></div><div>Second, most installer tools don't follow distutils.cfg. Even if that helps for python setup.py install, the other tools are still broken when you want to specify a layout. That is why changing the defaults is the only effective way to make this change - because the defaults drive what is actually implemented. I know, because I have looked at and patched these tools to make them work.</div><div><br></div><div>Third, there are some tool makers going meh - because you are right, this is not a problem they have. This is a problem associated with using those tools. And regardless of there being other ways to do it, including your 'dump it in a directory' method, development in virtualenvs is convenient, widespread, and on the rise. Given that pyvenv will go into 3.3, it will be the 'one obvious way to do it' - making going-forward cross-platform compatibility a positive good. Again I note the example of buildout.</div><div><br></div><div>And fourth, (because nobody expects the spanish inquisition), isn't the gratuitous difference a (small but) obvious wart? Does anybody positively like 'Scripts'? The most common comment I have received when talking to people off this list has been, 'yeah, that was always sort of weird.'</div>