I don't see anything particularly bogging here. It's always like this when you have multiple versions of the same software on the system. There's only one PATH, after all.
Heck, *the mere fact that Python allows to work like this is already a huge leap forward.* **Doing this cross-platform with exactly the same steps is something few could believe was even possible a couple of years ago!**
I agree.
To simplify things with Python, i do the following: * use the system's Python whenever possible
So python 2.7 on mac and some linux or none for windows...
* if using something else, only install the one version/environment that I'm using day-to-day and add it to PATH (system's if safe & convenient, personal otherwise) * prefer the system's/environment's package manager to pip to install 3rd-party modules, too, if there is one.
We can't solve the situation perfectly, but we can unify a bit. E.G: - provide the "py" command on all OSes to avoid the various naming and aliases of python - promote it in documentation - promote the use of py -x.x -m pip instead of the myriads of alternatives - provide an empty pip and venv module. If they are not here, py -m pip says "your plateform doesn't provide pip by default, please do xxxxx" to install it. With "xxxx" being plateform specific. - check "add python executable to system path" on the windows installer once by defaut