Enable pythonPath deprecation experiment to 4% of users

[luabud]

To enable experiment for #2125

• Pull request represents a single change (i.e. not fixing disparate/unrelated things in a single PR).
• Title summarizes what is changing.

[sonarqubecloud]

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[karthiknadig]

Since this experiment has not yet started. Should we be using the new framework?

[luabud]

It'll take a couple of weeks until we'd be able to turn it on with the new framework. I'd rather start with this one and leave it as the last experiment with our old framework.

[karrtikr]

min should be 96 and max should be 100 instead.

[karthiknadig]

@karrtikr Good catch

[zor-el]

I'm posting this coming from #2125 because that issue is referenced from the announcing blog post.

Complete removal of python.pythonPath from the settings is a massively breaking change that IMO isn't warranted by the #2125 issue that has been used to justify it in the above blog post. (This change has certainly been breaking things left and right for me.) The explanation in that blog post's comment that "it can be useful" doesn't invalidate my argument. A breaking change is harmful, so it should be significantly outweighed by a benefit that cannot by obtained otherwise. This is not the case here though, IMO.

Although it is true that pythonPath would likely be different for different people, I'd argue that is true for the entire (or most of) .vscode/settings.json. For example, extensions can and do store settings in .vscode/settings.json that may just as well conflict with other users.

Settings are not generally transferable from user to user and from machine to machine, so there is little point in sharing them. In those cases that one would want to share them, one would certainly want to separate transferable from non-transferable settings.

Note the OP's issue wasn't the existence of python.pythonPath, but the unsolicited modification of .vscode/settings.json, which sneaks in non-transferable content into (in their case) shared settings.

Apparently the underlying issue is the lack of means for separation of transferable from non-transferable settings. That separation is inadequately addressed by removal of pythonPath (it is a general issue, not one specific to Python). The concrete issue #2125 is not about pythonPath removal either but about unsolicited modification of .vscode/settings.json. That is just as inadequately addressed by mere removal of pythonPath (IMO it could have been solved without breaking everybody's settings).

Question: Why can we not keep python.pythonPath for backward compatibility and simply ask the user for permission to overwrite it (and hint at the fact that the setting may not be transferable)?

Perhaps even the experiment's pythonPath caching behavior could remain intact, but an explicit pythonPath setting could take precedence?

[karrtikr]

Opened up a new issue #12313 to answer your queries, and I recommend opening new issues for how removing this setting is breaking things for you.