How to install Xeus-cling without Anaconda?

Question

Why is Anaconda package manager necessary to install Xeus-cling? I have only used pip so far, and switching to a new package manager seems like a lot of work. I want to start using C++ with Jupyter, but all the installation instructions assume conda package manager.

Does anyone know of Xeus-cling installation which doesn't require Anaconda?

Answer 1

Pip is a package manager for python. It is mostly meant for packaging pure Python packages even though shipping some binary extensions is possible.

xeus-cling is a native application, which relies on a number of other libraries, including LLVM, Clang, Cling, Xeus, OpenSSL, libzmq and other. Vendoring the entire LLVM stack in a pip package would be unreasonable.

The developers of xeus-cling have made the choice of conda because it is a general-purpose cross-platform package manager, but it could be packaged for other general-purpose package managers, such as Debian's dpkg, OSX's Homebrew, conan.io or others.