Python install line standard

Can we establish a standard for how we do the whole python setup.py dance?

Please vote by posting a comment with the corresponding number. Majority after 1 week wins?

1. python setup.py install --single-version-externally-managed --record=record.txt
2. python setup.py install --single-version-externally-managed --root=/
3. python setup.py install --old-and-unmanageable
4. python -m pip install --no-deps .
5. pip install --no-deps .

I give up on strikethrough. 4 is out, due to error (https://travis-ci.org/conda-forge/staged-recipes/jobs/127374916#L405)

[msarahan]

This seems core enough that we might want to build it right into conda/conda-build. It might make pip-installed packages work a little better with conda. Thanks for your insight, @minrk.

[minrk]

I’d go for 5. 4 also works if --ignore-installed is added. I think 4 doesn’t work as-is because python -m seems to add . to sys.path, whereas pip alone doesn’t. That difference was awfully surprising.

The disadvantage of 1-3 is that they all assume setuptools is imported in setup.py, whereas pip should do the right thing in both cases (mainly by importing setuptools itself). If a package doesn’t use setuptools, then you have to use setup.py install without the extra args in the conda recipe, and then if it starts importing setuptools you have to make sure that the recipe changes the setup.py args at the same time. If you use pip, the command in the recipe wouldn’t change.