[Distutils] The future of invoking pip

[Oscar Benjamin]

On 9 November 2015 at 10:44, Wolfgang Maier
<wolfgang.maier at biologie.uni-freiburg.de> wrote:
>
> Something I miss in all the discussions taking place here is the fact that
> python -m pip is the officially documented way of invoking pip at
> https://docs.python.org/3/installing/index.html#basic-usage and it is not
> particularly helpful if that recommendation keeps changing back and forth.
>
> I know some people don't like the wordy invocation, but other people
> (including me) use and teach it because it works reliably. Just because a
> pip executable based invocation pattern looks better, I don't think it
> justifies the change.

I also teach this invocation. Somehow you have to select the Python
version you're interested in and I really don't see why

    $ pip -p ./foo/bar/python ...

is better than

    $ ./foo/bar/python -m pip ...

I already need to explain to students how to ensure that their Python
executable is on PATH. Needing pip to be on PATH as well is just
another possible source of confusion (even if there's only one Python
installation).

--
Oscar