[Distutils] Expectations on how pip needs to change for Python 3.4

[Donald Stufft]

On Jul 13, 2013, at 10:54 AM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:

> This issue has been skirted round for some time now, and I think it needs explicit discussion, as I am not at all sure everyone has the same expectations.
> 
> We're talking about Python 3.4 installations having pip as the default package manager - whether by bundling, having a bootstrap process or whatever. Regardless of the means, pip will be *the* installer for Python 3.4+. And yet, I don't think pip 1.4 currently does what people want "the Python 3.4 pip" to do in some ways - and we need to make sure that any work on the pip side is understood, agreed to, and planned to match the Python 3.4 timescales.
> 
> So, here's my initial list of things that I think people might be expecting to happen. This is just my impressions, and I don't necessarily have a view on the individual items. And if anyone else can think of other things to add to the list, please do so!
> 
> 1. Install to user-packages by default.

Do people really want this? I hadn't seen it (other than if pip was installed to user by default). I think it's a bad idea to switch this on people. I doubt the user-packages is going to be in people's default PATH so they'll easily get into cases where things are installed but they don't know where it was installed too.

> 2. Not depend on setuptools (??? - Nick's "inversion" idea)

I wanted to do this anyways. It will still "depend" on it, but it will just bundle setuptools itself like its other dependencies. For pip dependencies are an implementation detail not an actual thing it can/should have.

> 3. Possibly change the wrapper command name from pip to pip3 on Unix.

Not sure on this. Ideally i'd want the commands to be pipX.Y, pipX, and pip all available and not install the less specific ones if they already exist but that might be too hard?

> 4. Ensure that pip upgrading itself in-place is sufficiently robust and reliable that users don't get "stuck" on the Python-supplied version.

I've always used pip to upgrade pip. The only time i've had problems is when setuptools messes up (which would be prevented if bundled).

> 
> I'm sure I've seen people say other things that have made me think "are you expecting the pip maintainers to make that change?" in the various threads, so I doubt this list is definitive.
> 
> Comments anyone? Is this discussion premature? The pip maintainers team is not huge, so we'll need time (or assistance!) to plan in and make changes like this, if they are needed...
> 
> At a minimum, can we get the key items logged on the pip issue tracker with a milestone of Python 3.4?
> 
> Paul
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-----------------
Donald Stufft
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