[Python-Dev] updating ensurepip to include wheel

[Donald Stufft]

On August 2, 2015 at 8:47:46 PM, Robert Collins (robertc at robertcollins.net) wrote:
> So, pip 7.0 depends on the wheel module for its automatic wheel
> building, and installing pip from get-pip.py, or the bundled copy in
> virtualenvs will automatically install wheel.
>  
> But ensurepip doesn't bundle wheel, so we're actually installing a
> slightly crippled pip 7.1, which will lead to folk having a poorer
> experience.
>  
> Is this a simple bug, or do we need to update the PEP?
>  

Personally, I think it's not going to be worth the pain to add wheel to
ensurepip. We (pip) already have a somewhat rocky relationship with some
downstream vendors because of the bundling of pip and setuptools that I'm not
sure that wheel makes sense. Especially given that I want the optional
dependency on Wheel to be a temporary measure until we can just implicitly
install wheel as a build time dependency within pip and no longer need to
install it implicitly in get-pip.py or virtualenv. In the future I expect
setuptools to be removed as well at a similar time when we can implicitly
install setuptools as a build time dependency of an sdist and do not require
end users to install it explicitly.

That being said, I think the PEP would need to be updated (and possibly a new 
PEP?) since we explicitly called out the fact that setuptools would currently
be included until pip no longer needed it to be installed seperately.


---  
Donald Stufft  
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