Pip
is a powerful replacement for the easy_install
tool. It is a widely recommended utility, especially for use in virtual environments, because it offers many enhancements to the original easy_install
tool and some differences in philosophy too.
First, pip
offers the ability to uninstall packages. It also keeps better track of why a package needs to be installed, what dependency it satisfies, and provides logs of these details. Likewise, no packages are installed until all of the required packages have completed downloading. These features allow us to keep cleaner environments that are easier to manage and maintain.
Second, and most important for use with virtualenv, is that pip
will respect virtual environments. This means packages installed with pip
while running virtualenv will install to the appropriate active environment location.
Pip
also allows us to write requirements files. These are files that specify version requirements for a set of Python packages. This way we can simplify...