[Distutils] pip on windows experience

[Paul Moore]

On 24 January 2014 00:17, Oscar Benjamin <oscar.j.benjamin at gmail.com> wrote:
> You need to bear in mind that people currently have a variety of ways
> to install numpy on Windows that do work already without limitations
> on CPU instruction set. Most numpy users will not get any immediate
> benefit from the fact that "it works using pip" rather than "it works
> using the .exe installer" (or any of a number of other options). It's
> the unfortunate end users and the numpy folks who would have to pick
> up the pieces if/when the SSE2 assumption fails.

The people who would benefit are those who (like me!) don't have a
core requirement for numpy, but who just want to "try it out"
casually, or for experimenting or one-off specialised scripts. These
are the people who won't be using one of the curated distributions,
and quite possibly will be using a virtualenv, so the exe installers
won't work. Giving these people a means to try numpy could introduce a
wider audience to it.

Having said that, I can understand the reluctance to have to deal with
non-specialist users hitting obscure "your CPU is too old" errors -
that's *not* a good initial experience.

And your point that it's just as reasonable for pip to adopt a partial
solution in the short term is also fair - although it would be harder
for pip to replace an API we added and which people are using, than it
would be for numpy to switch to deploying better wheels when the
facilities become available. So the comparison isn't entirely equal.

Paul