Create a discussion document about virtual environments

Before you can start installing or using packages in your virtual environment you’ll need to activate it.

While a virtual environment is activated, pip will install packages into that specific environment.

Activating a virtual environment will put the virtual environment-specific python and pip executables into your
shell's PATH.

Could these parts be updated as well? They are incorrect and actively misleading, leading to a lot of misunderstandings. A virtual environment can be used without activation. It depends on how / which pip is used. It would be fantastic if this guide could explain that in slightly more detail: Explicitly explain that activating is only (one way of) putting the the virtual environment-specific python and pip executables into the current shell's PATH. Specifying that path explicitly is also possible and often easier, preferred, clearer, more robust. The leaky abstraction "activation" and the lack of such an explanation is mystifying things unnecessarily, and leads to many problems and much confusion.

• "Activation sucks as a method of switching environments" -- pfmoore
• "I use venvs extensively, but I never “activate” them." -- fungi
• "Why do we need to activate envs? One can always just env/bin/pip install whatever" -- bernatgabor
• "I have never once activated a virtual environment. I always use /full/path/to/venv/bin/python -m pip install …. And that’s what I teach to groups I mentor." -- ericvsmith
• ...

Originally posted by @petsuter in https://github.com/pypa/packaging.python.org/issues/1338#issuecomment-1793544750

Locate the guide passages quoted in the issue and read the linked discussions for context on activation and explicit interpreter paths. Done means the documentation explains that activation is optional, describes its PATH effect, and shows that an environment can be used by explicitly selecting its python or pip executable.