Allow custom environment variable for Nimble's cache

[ghost]

Summary

Allow a custom environment variable to be set for Nimble's location of packages etc.

Description

I'm a human being that likes to work with a clean environment and this especially goes for my personal user space. User space simply means the user profile directory (~/ and on Windows %USERPROFILE%).

See, I'm getting tired of compilers, package managers and some other programs like VS Code, dumping all their gorgeous goodies into my personal user space. This is not what this directory is for. This directory is for me, where I can store my personal files, important documents and other stuff yada yada yada.

There's always this stupid comment "But you can toggle dot files/directories with Ctrl + H". This doesn't account for Windows, and I don't want to depend on an external program hiding all that gibberish from me.

Have you checked whether or not you can set an environment variable for Nimble?

There's no need. It's hard-coded.

Nim/tools/finish.nim

Line 206 in fa7e6b3

let nimbleDesiredPath = expandFilename(getEnv("USERPROFILE") / ".nimble" / "bin")

What problem does it fix?

People like me can get on with their life, can customize their environment, and stop worrying about programs dumping their goodies into the user space.

Easy fix inbound?

You tell me. As of right now I'd suggest to store Nimble's cache in more suitable directories. Is an environment variable (NIMBLE_HOME) not explicitly set then go for:
Unix - ~/.local/.nimble
Windows - %APPDATA%/.nimble or %LOCALAPPDATA%/.nimble

Additional Information

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/971m0z/im_tired_of_folders_littering_my_home_directory/

[alaviss]

Related nim-lang/nimble#217

[andreaferretti]

You should open this as an issue for nimble, not Nim

[andreaferretti]

And by the way, the nimble cache is configurable