Retire site.cfg

[pp-mo]

Ref: https://github.com/SciTools/iris/pull/3458

This is less and less used, and an awkward and old-fashioned approach for users (IMHO). It now contains just 3 path settings :

• iris-sample-data can be configured by PYTHONPATH instead as it is importable (which is already a supported option).
• iris-test-data could be made importable
• the dot-path remains. Perhaps this can be fixed some other way.
  • frankly this is a really ancient and little-used feature which we probably don't need at all IMHO. But this isn't the time to address that

[bjlittle]

@pp-mo I'm :+1: for tidying the setup.cfg but I'm :-1: on flat out retiring it.... unless you've (we've) got a clear approach to do this. Any further thoughts? :thinking:

I really don't believe it makes sense to make iris-test-data importable. It just a big old data blob, and what's more it's only for developers. I'd say that making it importable is not really worth the effort. I think it's just about okay for iris-sample-data to be importable, as long as it doesn't bloat too much further - if it did, then I think that we'd need to seriously reconsider whether it should be importable or not.

[pp-mo]

@bjlittle I really don't believe it makes sense to make iris-test-data importable. It just a big old data blob, and what's more it's only for developers.

ok, maybe it's not needed if we believe in #3416. But in that case we really need some more help for aspiring developers -- I'll make more comment there..

[bjlittle]

Action on @bjlittle to make a proposal on how to move forwards and rationalise site.cfg et al at the peloton e.g., use of DOCS_DIR

[pp-mo]

Also found we have another setting "Resources/doc_dir "that is still used in this line Though it's not mentioned in site.cfg.template

[trexfeathers]

Offline discussion: we all share the ambition!