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

Paul Moore p.f.moore at gmail.com
Sat Sep 19 14:44:27 CEST 2015

On 19 September 2015 at 10:12, Sven R. Kunze <srkunze at mail.de> wrote:

The only question I have: is there a particular reason (not technical one) why there are many pips on my PC?

That's not an unreasonable question, but (IMO) most of the answers are technical, or amount to "why would you think that's wrong". So apologies, I do know this isn't a direct answer to your question.

  1. There are a lot of ways in which pip's implementation assumes it's installing modules for the Python installation that is running it.
  2. We have no installation process or path management to allow you to install a Python package outside of a Python installation and run it with the user's choice of Python.
  3. You've got lots of pythons on your PC (otherwise you wouldn't have lots of pips!) so why do you think it's not equally reasonable to have lots of pips?
  4. The "py" launcher (on Windows) manages your multiple Pythons for you - it can also manage pip if you don't mind using "py -m pip" to invoke pip. You can of course alias this (wrap it in a powershell function, bat file, shell script or whatever) as you choose.

So, to directly answer:

Because there are technical challenges that no-one has stepped up to solve.

I would assume you're thinking of a "single pip" in the same way that the py.exe launcher is a "single python". Assuming so, then the "single pip" solution is "py -m pip" (leveraging py.exe's options for picking which Python to use). I don't know if there's a Unix equivalent to the launcher - if not, then maybe there should be?

Paul

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