The tone of your reply makes me think maybe I'm doing something wrong. Which is quite possible because I'm following a fairly convoluted path to solving my problem.

Problem: I'm trying to teach myself Python. The Python tutorial I'm using at byteofpyton.org says, in order to execute a python program that I write from any directory within the CLI, I need to edit the "PATH environment variable". That is, if I want to run my Python programs without first cd'ing to the dir in which the programs exist, I need to set up the "PATH environment variable".

From this thread I got the impression that, in order to edit this "PATH environment variable" that I need to create a .profile file. For this, I was following the instructions specified on the xterm wiki.

Am I totally barking up the wrong tree here?