Hi, If I were telling a new Windows Python user what to do to get started, I would tell them to use easy_install because easy_install will pick up both installers and binary eggs and do the right thing with those and virtualenvs.
pip on Windows is a decent into misery. Giving Windows users reliable instructions on how to set up an appropriate compiler is fraught with peril. Probably most new Python users on Windows have never done C or set up a build environment; they probably don't even know what a compiler is or why they would need one. Even if they do know about compilers, getting the right Visual Studio version(express or otherwise) is a bit of a problem because Python does not use the current version of VS and which version you need changes with Python versions. If you get a working compiler, then you need to track down the C dependencies of the module you are building. The click installers are going to be a problem if you do any recommendation of virtualenv. The recent (or soon to be released) versions have --no-site-packages as the default and so, the click installers (that will install to global site-packages directory) won't show up without the user explicitly giving whatever the arg is for --with-site-packages when the virtualenv is created. I heard rumours of plans for pip to support binary packages of some kind on Windows, but I don't know the details or current status of that. -Chris On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Reinout van Rees <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi, > > I keep forgetting in discussions that pip doesn't support eggs. Their main > usecase is installing binary python eggs on windows, I'd say. I use linux > and OSX myself, so my windows experience is limited. > > Question: is pip's compile-from-source character a problem on windows? > Does everyone use a clicky-click .exe installer for binary packages instead > of pip? Is easy_install still more popular? > > > Note, I'm not talking about installing pure python packages, but more > stuff like mapnik, pil, matplotlib and psycopg2: packages that have C > bindings. > > > I'm asking because I'm writing a Django book and I don't want to get > clobbered for advising pip when it won't install a mysql or postgres > binding without major work. So I'd love some feedback from windows users! > > > (I'm mostly using buildout myself, but I'm only describing that near the > end of my book). > > > Reinout > > -- > Reinout van Rees http://reinout.vanrees.org/ > [email protected] > http://www.nelen-schuurmans.**nl/<http://www.nelen-schuurmans.nl/> > "If you're not sure what to do, make something. -- Paul Graham" > > ______________________________**_________________ > Distutils-SIG maillist - [email protected] > http://mail.python.org/**mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig<http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig> > -- Christopher Lambacher [email protected]
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