Is a Scripts directory an anti-pattern in Python? If so, what's the right way to import?

Question

I've always created scripts directories in every project I've built because they're useful for putting infrequently used executable scripts. In Python, I'll always put an __init__.py in my scripts directory so I can run scripts as packages (i.e. python -m scripts.some_scripts) and load modules from sister directories. Based off this as well as googling, I'm starting to get the feeling that this is an anti-pattern.

That said, given a structure like:

project_dir/
    some_modules_dir/
        foo.py
        bar.py
        ...
    scripts/
        some_script.py
        other_script.py
        ...

What's the right way to run scripts and what's the right way to have them import from their sister directory some_modules_dir? Which dirs should contain __init__.py and which shouldn't? I want to follow PEP8 as much as possible, and want to simplify running scripts as much as possible. If having a scripts directory at all is inherently inadvisable, what do you guys do instead?

Answer 1

The link in the question only says about running scripts that reside in a package directory which is a potential problem because... well... packages are not scripts and scripts are not packages. They serve different purposes and are invoked in different ways, so if you mix them together, there'll be a mess at some point.

Since Python itself has had a Scripts directory for ages and no one complains, it's in no way an anti-pattern.

See How do I separate my executable files from my library files? on how we dealt with executable scripts at my last occupation. It never caused any problems that I'm aware of.