Directory for executable files

[Phil]

Thank you for reading this.

In the past, programmes that needed to be built were downloaded into 
/usr/local/src and once "configure" and "make" were run an executable 
file would end up in /usr/local/bin. I don't often need to build a file 
with "make" and instead many of the programmes that I've downloaded, 
often to take advantage of the latest version, are downloaded in a zip 
file that contains an executable file.

Once extracted the executable file, along with many other files, ends up 
in ~/Downloads/programme_name but of course that directory is not in 
$Path. "Application Launcher" takes care of that problem but I think 
there must be a more technically correct method.

I do have ~/.local/bin because that's where "pip" puts the executable 
files. I could link ~/Downloads/programme_name to ~/.local/bin and that 
would allow me to launch an executable file from the console. $PATH 
includes ~/.local/bin.

So, is using the application launch the best method to take care of 
programmes that are not in the path or is there a more technically 
correct and neater method?

-- 

Regards,
Phil