<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 11:03, Thomas Kluyver <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:takowl@gmail.com">takowl@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im"><div class="gmail_quote">On 4 August 2011 17:59, Min RK <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:benjaminrk@gmail.com" target="_blank">benjaminrk@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>IPython 0.11 respects the XDG spec (.config etc.). It will only use ~/.ipython if it already exists (existing users), or on platforms where XDG is not in use (generally OSX and Windows, but also when the XDG config dir doesn't exist).</div>
<div><br></div><div>So we have picked XDG, but that's obviously not something we should pick everywhere. The only available change I see is to force the move from ~/.ipython to XDG on Linux unless users set IPYTHON_DIR=~/.ipython, but that doesn't sound good to me.</div>
</blockquote></div><br></div>Except, technically, we don't adhere to the XDG spec, because we put everything in .config, while data stored from the program should technically be in .local.<br><br>My suggestion is just to return to ignoring the XDG spec, and stick with .ipython. That way, it's in the same place for all users. A quick look at my home directory shows we're not exactly bucking the trend - firefox, libreoffice, pip, bzr, etc. have hidden folders that don't follow XDG. I think having two different possibilities is an extra hurdle for users wanting to configure it, and it feels like we've done it for no better reason than that the spec exists.<br>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Well, we did it because a significant number of users asked us to, and it just makes sense to follow established standards. Just because many other apps haven't caught up to standards doesn't mean we shouldn't. I agree that it's an unfortunate hurdle during the transition, but moving forward ~/.config/ipython will be the standard on Linux, and only users who have been using IPython for a long time or have explicitly chosen the old location will still be using it. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Perhaps in 0.12 we should print a deprecation message for ~/.ipython, and some time later enforce the move to XDG unless IPYTHON_DIR is set.</div><div><br></div><div>Also note that the first step for configuring IPython is always `ipython profile create[ foo]`, which tells you exactly where the files you want to edit were just created. We can amend this to always print the locations, even when not generating the files anew.</div>
<div><br></div><div>-MinRK</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><font color="#888888">
<br>Thomas<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br>