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

[Paul Moore]

On 16 November 2017 at 06:49, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 16 November 2017 at 05:29, Zachary Ware <zachary.ware+pydev at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 1:07 PM, Steve Dower <steve.dower at python.org>
>> wrote:
>> > My preferred solution for this is to rename "py.exe" to "python.exe" (or
>> > rather, make a copy of it with the new name), and extend (or more
>> > likely,
>> > rewrite) the launcher such that:
>> >
>> > * if argv[0] == "py.exe", use PEP 514 company/tag resolution to find and
>> > launch Python based on first command line argument
>> > * if argv[0] == "python<numeric tag>.exe", find the matching
>> > PythonCore/<tag> install (where tag may be a partial match - e.g.
>> > "python3.exe" finds the latest PythonCore/3.x)
>> > * else, if argv[0] == "<module><numeric tag>.exe, find the matching
>> > PythonCore/<tag> install and launch "-m <module>"
>> >
>> > With the launcher behaving like this, we can make as many hard links as
>> > we
>> > want in its install directory (it only gets installed once, so only
>> > needs
>> > one PATH entry, and this is C:\Windows for admin installs):
>> > * python.exe
>> > * python2.exe
>> > * python3.exe
>> > * python3.6.exe
>> > * pip.exe
>> > * pip2.exe
>> > * pip3.exe
>>
>> I haven't been following this thread closely, but this sounds lovely.
>> I'm not terribly keen on cluttering up C:\Windows with this, but
>> that's a minor issue.
>
>
> I'd missed Steve's post before writing my last one. This sounds like a
> really nice technical solution to me, too, especially as it will handle
> Python 2 as well (even for Python 2 only systems, the launcher is available
> as an independently installable executable).
>
> Regardless of the underlying implementation details though, a PEP would be a
> helpful way of writing it up so we can make sure packaging.python.org and
> other resources properly account for it.

OK, I'll add that to the list of things to look at.

Paul