Do we want to cross-reference https://peps.python.org/pep-0394 ? Mac may be the most common hold out here, but what python does is at the discretion of the system. I think most "modern" linux distros have moved over but I have not done the leg work to sort out when they transitioned (and at least ubuntu went through a period where python just did not exist).

On my pop os (ubuntu derivative) system, python is not symlinked, if I use system python I still need python3 (now, I don't actually use system python, but still)

Perhaps we should just change the example to use python3, which should be provided on all systems by that pep. (and if people know that just python works, they can continue to use it, but it won't hurt if they do python3 for the one command (unless their environment is broken enough for python3 and python point to different python (3, since if it points to 2 it won't work for us) versions.

Pep-394 states

While far from being universally available, python remains the preferred spelling for explicitly invoking Python

So I would not universally go for python3.

Have wheels progressed to the level where we want our beginner install docs to talk about venv first rather than conda? I think anyone who uses the system version of Python on a Mac is probably going to be sad sooner rather than later.

The continuation of that sentence, though, is:

as this is the spelling that virtual environments make consistently available across different platforms and Python installations.

Since the particular case in this example is "how do I set up a venv from system python", that implies that this is the particular case where that can't be relied on...

To be clear, I am perfectly fine to leave it as python in the main flow and add the note, with less specificity as it is not just "mac", I just don't fully agree that that the "preferred spelling is python" fully applies here.

I accepted the commit but I'm hesitant on linking out to the pep cause it might overwhelm the target audience.

You could prepare that with context:

For the technical reasons see PEP-394

and/or: put this sentence in a footnote? That would make it less prominent.