On 3/20/2012 4:25 PM, Mark Hammond wrote:
I think it does. Consider I've installed Python as a "system
install". Now I want to install some other package - ideally that
installer will request elevation - all well and good - the .py files
are installed. However, next time I want to run Python, it will fail
to generate the .pyc files - even though I'm an administrator. I
would need to explicitly tell Python to execute "as administrator" (or
run it from an already elevated command-prompt) to have things work as
expected. Thus, the "usual" case would be that Python is unable to
update any files in its install directory.
If Python installed for a single user didn't install into Program
Files (which it probably couldn't do without an administrator
providing credentials anyway) then it wouldn't be a problem - but then
we have multiple possible default install locations, which sounds like
more trouble than it is worth...
That said, there is an open bug in the tracker about the insecurity
of a system install of python (exactly that the files are writable
by anyone). So that would have to be solved first. I'd say this
is definitely a separate issue from Van's discussion, and the *only*
reason one might want to tie them together at all is "well, we're
changing the directory layout anyway".
Indeed, the single user "place" isn't a single place, unless you
consider the per-user $APPDATA environment variable sufficient to
determine it (or the Windows API that returns the initial boot up value
of $APPDATA/ %APPDATA%, which is the preferred technique for code). But
it does solve the security problem (stuff in APPDATA is accessible only
to a single login by default). So that might be justification for
putting it there, for single users.
For multi-user installs, %PROGRAMFILES% is appropriate, but, like I've
heard some Linux distributions do, *.pyc might have to be prebuilt and
installed along with Python (or generated during install, instead of
waiting for first use).
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