[Python-ideas] Looking for input to help with the pip situation

[Nick Coghlan]

On 6 November 2017 at 16:47, Michel Desmoulin <desmoulinmichel at gmail.com> wrote:
> I really want some people from this list to discuss here so we can find
> a way to either unify a bit the way we install and use pip, or find a
> way to express a tutorial that always works for people on the most
> popular platforms and spread the word so that any doc uses it.

https://docs.python.org/3/installing/#basic-usage is as close as we've
been able to get to that for the time being.

For Linux, you'll still need to do the initial "python3 -m venv" to
get your students out of the system Python.

I expect you'll also need an initial "py -m venv" for Windows users,
to get their PATH configured appropriately with both a "python"
command and any scripts they install from PyPI.

But the key point: do *NOT* try to teach without creating a virtual
environment as the first step, because it doesn't actually make
anything simpler, and in fact makes a lot of things harder and more
platform dependent.

The tutorial in the Python Packaging User Guide similarly starts with
venv creation: https://packaging.python.org/tutorials/installing-packages/#creating-virtual-environments

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia