[Distutils] Module Installation Issues

[Steve Dower]

On 13Sep2016 1312, Thomas Kluyver wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016, at 08:39 PM, Steve Dower wrote:
>> It would help if you could post the full error output (sanitizing
>> paths if needed). But you may just need to upgrade pip (python -m
>> install -U pip).
>
> I think Ryan may have typed that command at a Python prompt rather than
> a system command prompt. Unfortunately the distinction often isn't clear
> in examples, because the experienced developers writing the instructions
> are used to guessing which commands are Python and which are system
> commands.
>
> One thing I'd quite like to see Python grow is a standard function to
> install packages from inside Python. In R, the install.packages()
> function is the default way to get third party packages, and I think
> staying in one interactive prompt does make things easier for new users
> to understand.

Ah, I suspect you're right.

I have considered adding a "Python x.y Shell" start menu item that would 
configure PATH properly for commands like "python" and "pip". 
Instinctively, it seems this would be more useful than a direct shortcut 
to the executable, but at the same time I don't want to start competing 
with all the other app-specific shells out there.

Cheers,
Steve