"Proper" use of PATH and directory "purity"

[Dick St.Peters]

A new UNIX user has written a program that looks for its configuration
file by searching the directories in PATH.  I can't convince him this
is bad practice, because I can't point to any documentation.  He has
experience using DG's AOS-VS, which has a general purpose search list,
and he dismisses my arguments as "just" folklore.

The program is part of a medical imaging package that we distribute to
sites that are typically new to UNIX.  I don't want our software
distribution to introduce poor practices like putting non-executeable
files in bin directories and/or putting extraneous places into PATH.

Can anyone point me to useful documentation?  Even written folklore
would help if it sounds authoritative or appears in many places.

Please mail - I don't get to rn as often as I'd like.
--
Dick St.Peters                        
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY
stpeters at ge-crd.arpa              
uunet!steinmetz!stpeters