[TIP] Why does tox use "pip install --pre" by default?

[Paul Moore]

On 29 September 2014 14:57, Randy Syring <randy at thesyrings.us> wrote:
> On 09/29/2014 04:46 AM, Laura Creighton wrote:
>
>> This is true, but I think that 'people who know they want a beta version
>> of a release' are guaranteed to be less naive than 'people who are unaware
>> that beta versions of releases even exist, and who are also unaware that
>> it is something that they need to think about'.
>
> FWIW, I'm in agreement with the above.  I'm proficient and experienced in
> Python, but by default, I would have assumed tox does what `pip install`
> does.  That is, no '--pre' by default.

I use tox, but I'm not particularly proficient. It never occurred to
me to think about this until now, but I agree, I'd have expected tox
to use pip (with default options) to install stuff.

One thing that *hasn't* been mentioned here is how to customise the
behaviour. If I'm reading the docs right, it's just

[envlist]
install_command=pip install {opts} {packages}

(or if this becomes the default, add --pre to get the current behaviour).

I'd suggest that if the default isn't changed, then there should be a
prominent section added to the documentation covering how to get tox
to follow pip's default behaviour regarding prereleases (and why the
default for tox differs).

Paul