Opened 16 years ago

Closed 16 years ago

#5907 closed (wontfix)

development installation docs should mention .pth for path configuration on Windows

Reported by: arien <regexbot@…> Owned by: nobody
Component: Documentation Version: dev
Severity: Keywords: installation windows
Cc: Triage Stage: Unreviewed
Has patch: yes Needs documentation: no
Needs tests: no Patch needs improvement: no
Easy pickings: no UI/UX: no

Description

Currently, the installation docs say that:

"Alternatively, you can define your PYTHONPATH environment variable so that it includes the django subdirectory of django-trunk. This is perhaps the most convenient solution on Windows systems, which don't support symbolic links."

IMHO using a django.pth file is more convenient, because the user doesn't have to set PYTHONPATH for Python or mod_python.

Attachments (1)

5907.diff (1.8 KB ) - added by arien <regexbot@…> 16 years ago.

Download all attachments as: .zip

Change History (4)

by arien <regexbot@…>, 16 years ago

Attachment: 5907.diff added

comment:1 by Malcolm Tredinnick, 16 years ago

Resolution: wontfix
Status: newclosed

Using PYTHONPATH doesn't require you to change any system directories (such as site-packages), so it's a less intrusive solution.

I think this is a line-ball: some people will prefer one way and some people will prefer the other. We'd take a patch that was a link to a description of .pth files, but including a whole extra section on it is just making things longer. Our goal is to provide one way to do things, not every possible way.

comment:2 by arien <regexbot@…>, 16 years ago

Resolution: wontfix
Status: closedreopened

Sorry you don't like the patch. I can't say your characterization is fair, though.

Creating a symlink in site-packages on *nix is just as intrusive as placing a .pth file there on Windows. I left the PYTHONPATH alternative in precisely because it doesn't require write access to site-packages.

The docs make it sound like using symlinks would be the preferred solution on Windows as well if only Windows supported them (it apparently does as of Vista), so I added a whole two sentences and one line of configuration to give Windows users (cross-platform) "Python symlinks".

Yes, there's redundancy, but IMHO the "one more way to do things" would be using symlinks. (Users of *nix are assumed to "just know" how to set environment variables, as opposed to Windows users who get a link, but they don't know about symlinks?

Feel free to close again.

comment:3 by James Bennett, 16 years ago

Resolution: wontfix
Status: reopenedclosed

Marking wontfix for the reasons Malcolm outlined above.

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