One of the little challenges with writing Unix programs in Python isthe search path problem. The natural structure of Python programs is tosplit functionality up into a bunch of modules and then import themall in the main program, but the natural structure of a Unix program isto put its binary into one directory (such as /usr/bin ) but all ofits helper bits into a second, completely different directory. So theproblem is: how is a Unix Python program supposed to find its modules?

(The

There is a certain view, one that is easy for people to fall into,to the effect that while backwards compatibility in new versions oflanguages is important and should be given due weight, sometimes thelanguage designers can, do, and should decide that the change isimportant enough so that it should be made. Let us call this thelanguage designer view of language changes.

The problem for this view and for the decisions that come from itis simple:

Programmers do not have to accept what you give them.

The usual rejoinder to the funding capture problem is that organizations will still have to actto in order to stay meaningful and important. If an organization doesnothing, outside people will come to see it as unimportant, useless, andmeaningless, resulting in the people funding it winding up not gettinganything for their money, so they'll stop paying. After all, why pay forsomething that gives you no benefits?

(Let us skip lightly over all of the practical difficulties here,starting with organizational inertia.)