Pypi.org is running a survey on the state of Python packaging

I view dependencies outside of the standard library as a kind of technical debt, not because I suffer from Not Invented Here and want to code it myself, no, I look and think, "Why isn't this in the standard library with a working set of idioms around it?"

I haven't developed anything with more than five digits of code to it, which is fine for me, but part of it is just ... avoidance of having to screw with libraries. Ran into a pip issue I won't go into (it requires a lot of justification to see how I got there) and just ... slumped over.

This has been a bad spot in Python for a long, long time. While people are busy cramming their favorite feature from their last language into Python, this sort of thing has languished.

Sadly, I have nothing to offer but encouragement, I don't know the complexities of packaging, it seems like a huge topic that perhaps nobody really dreamed Python would have to seriously deal with twenty years ago.

Software developers shouldn't need to figure out what build-time dependencies their libraries need...

We need a way to configure an ordered list of indexes pip searches for packages. —extra-index-url or using a proxy index is not the solution.

Also namespaces and not based on a domain. So for example: pip install apache:parquet

Also some logic either in the pip client or index server to minimize typosquatting

Also pip should adopt a lock file similar to npm/yarn. Instead of requirements.txt

And also “pip list” should output a dependency tree like “npm list”

I should not have to compile source when I install. Every package should have wheels available for the most common arch+OS combos.

Also we need a way to download only what you need. Why does installing scipy or numpy install more dependencies than the conda version? For example pywin and scipy.

This is exactly why I prefer the larger opinionated web frameworks (Django, Vue.js) to the smaller more composable frameworks (Flask, React). I don’t what to make decisions every time I need a new feature, I want something that “just works”.

Python and Django just work, and brilliantly at that!