I believe that the name "Wheel" was a reference to "reinventing the wheel". But I cannot find a quote to support this claim. I think the general sentiment was that it was the second attempt by the Python community to come up with a packaging format (first being Egg), and so they were reinventing the wheel, in a way.
I cannot speak to the other question though: I don't know. This is however also a common practice on Linux, where Python is often installed in order to enable system tools, which, in turn, don't need a Python package manager to function. Not sure why this would be the case in MS Windows. On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 4:51 PM Johanne Fairchild via Python-list <python-list@python.org> wrote: > > Why is a whl-package called a ``wheel''? Is it just a pronunciation for > the extension WHL or is it really a name? > > Also, it seems that when I install Python on Windows, it doesn't come > with pip ready to run. I had to say > > python -m ensurepip > > and then I saw that a pip on a whl-package was installed. Why doesn't > the official distribution make pip ready to run by default? Thank you! > -- > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
