Remove pip as the primary installation method

airflowctl is affected by the chicken-and-egg problem of Python version. No surprisingly it has the same burden as other Python environment & project managers (e.g., hatch, pipx, pyenv) :

If we start with pip, the version used in airflowctl built must match the same version as your pip environment:

    $ python -V
    Python X.Y.Z

    $ python -m pip install airflowctl
    $ airflowctl init --python-version=X.Y.Z .
    $ airflowctl build .

Otherwise pyenv is invoked to get the correct python version (forcing users to use a specific version manager).

The above is the ideal instruction if we're going to use pip. With the current instructions, you can run into a lot of issues if you have one of these situation:

--python-version is not the same as the version used in pip install airflowctl
--python-version is not specified
pyenv is not available
python is a different version than the one installed with pip. For example:
- In a broken environment where python and pip are related
- User later on upgraded Python and did not reinstall airflowctl.

Here are my suggestions:

Installation instructions should remove pip as the primary method.
Ideally, airflowctl behaviors should not depend on the Python version it is installed to.
airflowctl build should fail if python_version does not exist in $PATH. Error message should ask users to have the correct Python version.
- Alternatively, users can override which Python path to build the virtual environment with.
Provide a Python-agnostic installation method (e.g., brew, apt, yum, winget, choco, etc.)

Alternatively, although a bigger rewrite, switch to using hatch or rye.

kaxil / airflowctl

Remove pip as the primary installation method #33