使用Pip和Anaconda安装包（Windows）

Question

Good evening! I was wondering why you have to use a shell, such as cmd, to install packs in Pip but when it comes to Anaconda you can use its own shell. Or, rephrasing: what impedes Pip to be considered a shell (considering it even has the appearance of one if you open it by itself)? Thank you!

Answer 1

A shell is a command line interface that lets you give your computer commands using a syntax specific to the OS and shell program. PIP (acronym for "PIP Installs Packages") is simply a program designed to be used within a shell environment like CMD.

Anaconda is a Python package distribution which happens to include a Python IDLE, which has a both a command line interface as well as text editor.

Hope this helps your understanding.

Answer 2

Pip is actually running from the shell when double clicking! When you double click pip you will probably see that it quickly closes. The inplamenters chose to this. Not exactly sure why (you would have to ask them) but I would guess because of one (or more) of these reasons:

1) Running from a shell is more portable. No matter where you are you in your file path you can open up cmd and as long as pip has been added to path run it. Running by double clicking is not always convenient.

2) Other architectures. Under Linux the terminal has a much greater part than on Windows. The inplamenters would have wanted pip to be cross platform. The double click method does not exist under Linux and so the only other option is to run through the terminal. Remember that the inplamenters wanted to be as cross platform as possible and running from a shell is the safest, most concise method of doing things.

3) They did not have only Windows in mind when building. Python was built under C and although cross platform it has not been built for a single OS. This means the inplamenters could not use all the attractive features because many would not work as soon as the OS changed.