On Mon, 9 Sep 2019 at 06:28, Kyle Stanley <aeros...@gmail.com> wrote: > Steve Dower wrote: > > It also means that regular users can install packages without needing to be > > admin, and without corrupting other user's installs. > > Does this have any advantage over using a virtual environment? I can imagine > this might be more simple for new users (since they don't have to do anything > additional), but setting up a virtual environment to use for a separate set > of packages is very straightforward nowadays with venv.
I think you underestimate how much of a barrier using a virtual environment is to a new user. In my experience, people expect to install Python, and then be able to install packages immediately. Learning about virtual environments usually comes a lot further down the learning path (*particularly* if the user is self-taught - maybe training courses get structured differently, but I suspect a lot of people learn Python by installing it and "looking stuff up on the internet"). And in case you're not aware, on Windows, if you have an all users install in the standard location (C:\Program Files), to install something you need to open a new console window running a shell "as administrator" (which is a non-obvious extra step that new users will probably have no idea how to do) and then run `pip install xxx` in that shell. Doing pip install from your working shell fails with permission errors, even if you have admin rights (pip doesn't include the mechanisms needed to "request elevation" for itself, and there's no straightforward equivalent of the Unix sudo command for this). Paul _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list -- python-dev@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to python-dev-le...@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-dev.python.org/ Message archived at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-dev@python.org/message/IWSLBVLHMJNL7VBZLMNLVPEROLTNBZMP/
