[Python-Dev] Proposing the deprecation of the pyvenv script (original) (raw)

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Sat Sep 19 07:49:19 CEST 2015

On 9/19/2015 1:24 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

Barry Warsaw writes:

> One thing that came up in a similar discussion is pip, and the > suggested move to python -m pip, which makes a lot of sense. > However, inside a virtualenv, there's no ambiguity about the > Python version associated with direct pip invocation, so it still > makes sense to install that there. And then the poor newbie who's just following orders (eg, in mailman3/src/mailman/docs/INSTALL) will try pip'ing outside of the virtualenv for some reason, and have a WTF experience. I think we should KISS the pip command good-bye. A somewhat different way I look at it: the OS provides a shell, and you invoke aptitude (CLI) or synaptic (from clickety-clickety GUI shell) from that OS shell to manage OS packages. By analogy (always slippery but this one feels good to me), to manage python packages you should be working in the Python "shell".

It is somewhat possible to do this by importing pip.main and translating pip command line calls to main() calls. I reported proof-of-concept experiments on issue 23551. To be practical, this should be wrapped in a tkinter gui. Once written, I will add it to the Idle menu. Other gui shells, could and probably would do the same.

R does it that way with great success. Emacsen do it (with lesser success :-P ). perl and TeX don't -- but they don't have interactive shells (at least not universally available to the users).

Am I correct in guessing that on Windows, at least, R and Emacs do not run in Command Prompt?

-- Terry Jan Reedy

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