[Python-Dev] Proposing the deprecation of the pyvenv script

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Barry Warsaw writes:

 > One thing that came up in a similar discussion is pip, and the
 > suggested move to `python -m pip`, which makes a lot of sense.
 > However, *inside* a virtualenv, there's no ambiguity about the
 > Python version associated with direct `pip` invocation, so it still
 > makes sense to install that there.

And then the poor newbie who's just following orders (eg, in
mailman3/src/mailman/docs/INSTALL<wink/>) will try pip'ing outside of
the virtualenv for some reason, and have a WTF experience.  I think we
should KISS the pip command good-bye.

A somewhat different way I look at it: the OS provides a shell, and
you invoke aptitude (CLI) or synaptic (from clickety-clickety GUI
shell) from that OS shell to manage OS packages.  By analogy (always
slippery but this one feels good to me), to manage python packages you
should be working in the Python "shell".  R does it that way with
great success.  Emacsen do it (with lesser success :-P ).  perl and
TeX don't -- but they don't have interactive shells (at least not
universally available to the users).