On 13 July 2013 19:24, Donald Stufft <donald@stufft.io> wrote:

2. This sounds like something that needs fixed on Windows. Even if you say ``-m`` for pip then things are still broken by default for any other package on PyPI that installs a script. So this feels like something wrong with Python on windows not wrong with the script approach.

It is, and it should be fixed. But in many years, nobody has managed to come up with an acceptable solution. The debates seem to be largely around what happens if you install multiple versions of Python and then remove some of them, and how badly your system PATH gets messed up by this. I don't know how many people actually do things like that, but nevertheless it's never been sorted out. (Not all of the arguments are trivial, either, there are some genuinely difficult issues to resolve, IIRC).

Ultimately, I guess there are a few options:

* Accept that Windows is a problem in this regard, but don't worry about it - install executable wrappers/scripts and let the user deal with path issues.

* Promote "python -m pip" as a least common denominator approach, and mildly irritate people who don't use Windows (they can still use the commands, but the docs look odd to them).

* Only provide "python -m pip" and seriously annoy people who don't use Windows.

* Document the difference, which implies either a certain level of repetitious "pip install (or py -m pip install on Windows)" type of thing, or a high level "For Windows, the pip command is not available directly, you should use ``python -m pip`` in its place (or wrap this in the shell if you prefer)" which people may miss.

It would be nice to get feedback from "normal users" on this. I suspect that the scientific community would make a good cross-section (AIUI there's quite a lot of Windows use, and for many people in the community Python is very much a tool, rather than a way of life :-)). Does anyone have links into the scipy groups? I lurk on the IPython lists, so I could ask there, at a pinch...

Paul.