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Question 1: If someone already has installed Python but did not check this box on, is there some simple command line magic to do whatever this checkbox does? If so, what do I need to tell my student to do?
With a
python 3.X installed they need replace 'python' by 'py -3.X' in the cmdline.
Examples, for a python 3.7 installation:
To invoke the interactive interpreter:
py -3.7
To run a script:
py -3.7 myscript.py
Another difference with unix-like OSes is that the python's Scripts directory is not on the path, so pip (and other commands in Scripts) need a full qualified path in the command, like
c:\python37\Scripts\pip install ...
or the alternative form
py -3.7 -m pip install ..
I don't know if it would be better to work from a venv:
Create venv
py -3.7 -m venv venv_path
Activate
venv_path\Scripts\activate
After that, in that console 'python' would be the python in the venv, and venv_path\Scripts will be in the PATH, so commands like 'pip', 'pytest', etc would work fine.
To deactivate the venv:
deactivate
> Question 2: If someone does not have Python installed yet (or wants to install a newer version), what is the most recent version of Python (Mac and Windows) that I should ask them to install today? I understand that there is a big effort to get the 2.0 version of Pygame out, but I want my students to use version 1.9 for now. If they install the current version of Python: 3.9, will they be able to use pip to install a working version of pygame 1.9? (Last time I checked, this did not work correctly?
python 3.8 has been tested more time; also 3.9 is not compatible with windows7, which maybe some students have in their house.