[Python-Dev] updating ensurepip to include wheel

[Robert Collins]

On 7 August 2015 at 03:28, Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:
>
>> On Aug 6, 2015, at 5:04 AM, Robert Collins <robertc at robertcollins.net> wrote:
>>
>> Yes: but the logic chain from 'its a bad idea' to 'we don't include
>> wheel but we do include setuptools' is the bit I'm having a hard time
>> with.
>
>
> In my opinion, it’s the severity of how crippled their experience is without that particular thing installed.
>
> In the case of wheel not being installed they lose the ability to have an implicit wheel cache and to run ``pip wheel``. This makes pip less good but, unless they are running ``pip wheel`` everything is still fully functioning.
>
> In the case of setuptools they lose the ability to ``pip install`` when there isn’t a wheel available and the ability to run ``pip wheel``. This is making pip completely unusable for a lot of people, and if we did not pre-install setup tools the number one thing people would do is to ``pip install setuptools``, most likely while bitching under their breath about the command that just failed because they tried to install from sdist.
>
> So it’s really just “how bad are we going to break people’s expectations”.

So - I was in a talk at PyCon AU about conda[*], and the author
believed they were using the latest pip with all the latest caching
features, but their experience (16 minute installs) wasn't that.

I dug into that with them after the talk, and it was due to Conda not
installing wheel by default.

Certainly the framing of ensurepip as 'this installs pip' is going to
be confusing and misleading if it doesn't install pip the way
get-pip.py (or virtualenv) install pip, leading to confusion such as
that.

Given the inconsequential impact of installing wheel, I see only harm
in holding it back, and only benefits in adding it. All the harm from
having source builds comes in with setuptools ;).

-Rob

*) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqknoni5aX0

-- 
Robert Collins <rbtcollins at hp.com>
Distinguished Technologist
HP Converged Cloud