On Jul 13, 2013, at 6:44 PM, Steve Dower <Steve.Dower@microsoft.com> wrote:

Because of the issues around compilation on Windows, we believe that most users avoid pip in favor of precompiled installers. The model of "download an executable that matches my Python version and run it" is more familiar than a command line tool, and unlikely to go away anytime soon.

Luckily for them the upcoming pip 1.4 includes support for compiled packages called Wheels ;)

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Donald Stufft
PGP: 0x6E3CBCE93372DCFA // 7C6B 7C5D 5E2B 6356 A926 F04F 6E3C BCE9 3372 DCFA