Pip and External Libraries

Pip is Python's package installer that allows you to install and manage third-party packages from the Python Package Index (PyPI) and other repositories. Pip comes bundled with Python installations (Python 3.4+). Basic pip commands include install, uninstall, list, show, and freeze. Packages can be installed from PyPI by name, from version control systems, from local projects, or from distribution files. Virtual environments (venv) are recommended for isolating project dependencies. Requirements files (requirements.txt) specify dependencies for reproducible installations. Pip also supports dependency resolution, although this has improved significantly with newer versions. Understanding pip is essential for leveraging the vast ecosystem of Python libraries for web development, data science, machine learning, and other domains. Most real-world Python projects depend on external packages, making pip a fundamental tool in the Python developer's toolkit.