[Visualpython-users] User survey

[Jonathan B. <jbr...@ea...>]

By default, Python only searches under /usr/lib/python/site-packages for
third-party extension modules on more than one platform, so an extension
module installed under /usr/local/lib/python/site-packages will not be
imported by python on these platforms.

IMO, /usr belongs to the OS distributor, and local packages that are not
installed by under the distribution's package management system (eg apt,
rpm) should be installed under the /usr/local hirearchy.  There are
several work-arounds that we can make in the installer, or leave it up
to the user to fix.  Please let us know what behavior you expect from
our source distribution.

[ ] 1) Install with a default installation prefix of /usr.
[ ] 2) Automatically extend the python module search path by appending
to sitecustomize.py
[ ] 3) Automatically extend the python module search path by adding a
file named "Visual.pth" in the existing search path.
[ ] 4) Provide instructions for the user to manually choose one of the
above.
[ ] 5) Something else: _____________


Thanks for your feedback,
Jonathan Brandmeyer

P.S. Dr. Sherwood and I are leaning towards 2 and 4.

Detailed descritption for extending sys.path.  Although part of the 2.3
docs, it is completely relavant for 2.2.
http://www.python.org/dev/doc/devel/inst/search-path.html#SECTION000410000000000000000

See the blurb about sitecustomize at the end.
http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-site.html

See the description of sys.path.
http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-sys.html