Paul Cantrell
Python’s whole dependency management story is an astonishing mess.
I end up helping students with projects in a wide variety of languages, so I get to compare how newcomers puzzle things out. And no environment, none, has as many dependency footguns as Python.
Even npm/yarn, which will put a separate copy of the same library •inside every project• that uses it, can’t compete.
1/2
Paul Cantrell
Python footguns:
- You should create a venv
- Oops! You should gitignore it
- Oops! You should use a `requirements.txt` file, the uncommitted venv won’t actually track dependencies
- Oops! Now you to run one long, non-obvious command to create the venv and a second one to pip install the requirements on each checkout
- Oops! The defaults are all wrong, and no helpful errors guide you away from them
To see it done better, look at Ruby, Rust, Swift (for starters)
Venting session concluded.
2/2
Paul Cantrell
@helge
Huh, Ruby (and specifically bundler+gems+rvm) mostly Just Works for me. The main hiccups, if any: (1) old libraries with C extensions that won’t compile on new systems, and (2) trouble building an old version of Ruby.
Helge Heß
@inthehands I have to fight with Ruby literally every single time I have to touch it, it is a mess too.
Python might have an unusual excuse: The original idea was “batteries included”.
Paul Cantrell
@helge
Huh, I’m guessing there’s some environtal setup magic we regular Ruby users do and don’t know we’re doing. And I don’t think Ruby’s install story is nearly as good as its dependency story.
Helge Heß
@inthehands I'm not kidding, literally every time I touch a Ruby project, be it Fastlane stuff or Jekyll, it simply won't work. Yes, I'm a noob about it and don't care about Ruby, but that's how it works for me. I usually end up getting it running somehow, but don't necessarily know why 🙈
Matthew Booth
@inthehands And these are merely Python's dependency footguns. If you have any feet left when you get it running you can enjoy its plethora of other footguns.
Ellipsis...
@inthehands At the start of a project, there's the challenge of installing the SDK to begin with, and perhaps even multiple concurrent versions of it. In the middle, as you say, is the nightmare of dependency management. At the back end is the fractured support for packaging and publishing. My org has started using Poetry for he last two, which is slightly better than pipenv, but still not a smooth ride.
Paul Cantrell
@tobiaspatton
Yeah, I looked at Poetry briefly to see if I should be recommending it to students, but my conclusion is it’s a bit nonstandard and not enough of a clear win to justify the headaches that come with that.
Paul Cantrell
To clarify for those offering replies:
I am not asking for your personal tool preference. I’m sure your preference is nice, but I didn’t ask for it.
I am saying that the •default• should just work: whatever the tools + docs + web search naturally lead newcomers to should be the right starting point. The fact that there even is anything to haggle out in my replies is the problem here. If there’s an approach you think should be the default, go tell it to the people who make Python.
Paul Cantrell
@tuban_muzuru
It’s amusing how that article (1) describes yet another approach + set of tools different from all the replies to my posts above, totally nonstandard, that (2) meticulously reproduce almost exactly the standard approach shared by Cargo, Bundler, SwiftPM, NPM, etc. Just a remarkable example of non-learning on Python’s part.
So much of this already a solved problem. Just steal it and standardize it!
tuban_muzuru
I started using ( and teaching ) Java on the first night it was available from Sun Micro.
Python has made so many of the same errors of strategy - it's as if nobody was paying attention to how angry everyone was getting.
This article does help a bit...
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