How Python virtual environments work • Hacker News Board

Re: How Python virtual environments work

#291

Post by pnt12 » Thu, Mar 16, 2023, 8:24 PM UTC

josteink wrote: post #90

All other languages: use whatever packages you like. You’ll be fine. Python: we’re going to force all packages from all projects and repos to be installed in a shared global environment, but since nobody actually wants that we will allow you to circumvent that by creating “virtual” environments you can maintain and have to deal with instead. Also remember to activate it before starting your editor or else lulz. And d…

What an awful take.

Python is 30 years old and back then system packages were more common, that's it. It's been a bumpy ride and I'd prefer if there was a standard manager, but the community has produced some decent ones.

The python community has always tried to make devs happy. Pip has an amazing number of libraries. Virtual envs were included into the standard tools. Pipenv was integrated in the python github organization. The org doesn't hate virtual envs!

Re: How Python virtual environments work

#292

Post by allarm » Wed, Mar 22, 2023, 7:39 AM UTC

crabbone wrote: post #284

groestl wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a very abrasive style of dialog, combined with an unwillingness to consider alternative POVs in your discussion, bordering on trolling. I like discussion, but I don't enjoy this. With that, I will disengage now.

You don't have an alternative point of view. You don't have a point of view, because, again, you don't understand something very basic about this subject.

You don’t understand something very basic about adult people interaction, that’s much worse.

Re: How Python virtual environments work

#293

Post by dkarl » Wed, Mar 22, 2023, 9:54 PM UTC

crabbone wrote: post #120

_coveredInBees wrote: post #67

I'm surprised at the number of people here complaining about venvs in Python. There are lots of warts when it comes to package management in Python, but the built-in venv support has been rock solid in Python 3 for a long time now. Most of the complaints here ironically are from people using a bunch of tooling in lieu of, or as a replacement for vanilla python venvs and then hitting issues associated with those tools…

The most important part about venv is that you shouldn't need it. The very fact that it exists is a problem. It is a wrong fix to a problem that was left unfixed because of it. The problem is fundamental in Python in that its runtime doesn't have a concept of a program or a library or a module (not to be confused with Python's modules, which is a special built-in type) etc. The only thing that exists in Python is a "…

> The most important part about venv is that you shouldn't need it. The very fact that it exists is a problem. It is a wrong fix to a problem that was left unfixed because of it.

What Python needs is a tool that understands your project structure and dependencies so the rest of your tools don't have to.

In other languages, that's called a build tool, which is why people have a hard time understanding that Python needs one.