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Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

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Re: Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

#81

Post by philipallstar »

Hasz wrote: post #17
athorax wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the biggest value of uv was replacing pyenv for managing multiple versions of python. So uv replaced pyenv+pyenv-virtualenv+pip

This is it. Later versions of python .11/.12/.13 have significant improvements and differences. Being able to seamlessly test/switch between them is a big QOL improvement. I don't love that UV is basically tied to a for profit company, Astral. I think such core tooling should be tied to the PSF, but that's a minor point. It's partially the issue I have with Conda too.

> I think such core tooling should be tied to the PSF, but that's a minor point.

The PSF is busy with social issues and doesn't concern itself with trivia like this.

Re: Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

#83

Post by tempay »

gostsamo wrote: post #79
dekhn wrote: post #58

I hadn't paid any attention to rust before uv, but since starting to use uv, I've switched a lot of my performance-sensitive code dev to rust (with interfaces to python). These sorts of improvements really do improve my quality of life significantly. My hope is that conda goes away completely. I run an ML cluster and we have multi-gigabyte conda directories and researchers who can't reproduce anything because just to…

As far as I get it, conda is still around because uv is focused on python while conda handles things written in other languages. Unless uv gets much more universal than expected, conda is here to stay.

There is also pixi (which uses uv for the python side of things) which feels like uv for conda.

Re: Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

#84

Post by nicoco »

kyt wrote: post #21

I must be the odd man out but I am not a fan of uv. 1. It tries to do too many things. Please just do one thing and do it well. It's simultaneously trying to replace pip, pyenv, virtualenv, and ruff in one command. 2. You end up needing to use `uv pip` so it's not even a full replacement for pip. 3. It does not play well with Docker. 4. It adds more complexity. You end up needing to understand all of these new enviro…

uv pip is a full reimplementation of pip. Way faster, better caching, less disk usage. What'd not to like about it?

Re: Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

#85

Post by procaryote »

jampekka wrote: post #51
hollow-moe wrote: post #15

curl|sh and iwr|iex chills my spine, no one should recommend these methods of installation in 2025. I'm against closed computers but I'm also against reckless install. Even without the security concerns these way of installation tends to put files in a whole random places making it hard to manage and cleanup.

Installing an out-of-distro deb/rpm/msi/dmg/etc package is just as unsafe as curl|sh. Or even unsafer, as packages tend to require root/admin.

A package is at least a signable, checksummable artefact. The curl | sh thing could have been anything and after running it you have no record of what it was you did.

There have also been PoCs on serving malicious content only when piped to sh rather than saved to file.

If you want to execute shell code from the internet, at the very least store it in a file first and store that file somewhere persistent before executing it. It will make forensics easier

Re: Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

#86

Post by WD-42 »

seabrookmx wrote: post #20
WD-42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as impact on the ecosystem I’d say uv is up there. For the language itself you are right. Curious if you’ve come across any real use cases for Gil-less python. I haven’t yet. Seems like everything that would benefit from it is already written in highly optimized native modules.

> Seems like everything that would benefit from it is already written in highly optimized native modules Or by asyncio.

I'm pretty ignorant about this stuff but I think asyncio is for exactly that, asynchronus I/O. Whereas GIL-less Python would be beneficial for CPU bound programs. My day job is boring so I'm never CPU bound, always IO bound on the database or network. If there is CPU heavy code, it's in Numpy. So I'm not sure if Gil-less actually helps there.

Re: Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

#87

Post by ethmarks »

dark__paladin wrote: post #32

Genuinely trying to learn here - what's the major advantage of using uv over conda? (Transparently, I'm posting this before I've completed the article.)

They have different use cases. uv is meant to be the singular tool for managing Python packages and dependencies, replacing pip, virtualenv, and pip-tools. Conda is for more general-purpose environment management, not just Python. If you're doing something with Node or R, uv won't work at all because it's only for Python.

uv's biggest advantage is speed. It claims a 10-100x performance speedup over pip and Conda [1]. uv can also manage python versions and supports using Python scripts as executables via inline dependencies [2].

But Conda is better for non-Python usage and is more mature, especially for data science related uses.

[1]: https://github.com/astral-sh/uv/blob/main/BENCHMARKS.md [2]: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/#scripts

Re: Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

#88

Post by embe42 »

dekhn wrote: post #58

I hadn't paid any attention to rust before uv, but since starting to use uv, I've switched a lot of my performance-sensitive code dev to rust (with interfaces to python). These sorts of improvements really do improve my quality of life significantly. My hope is that conda goes away completely. I run an ML cluster and we have multi-gigabyte conda directories and researchers who can't reproduce anything because just to…

You might be interested in pixi, which is roughly to conda as uv is to pip (also written in Rust, it reuses the uv solver for PyPI packages)

Re: Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

#89

Post by ellg »

eatonphil wrote: post #74
kyt wrote: post #21

I must be the odd man out but I am not a fan of uv. 1. It tries to do too many things. Please just do one thing and do it well. It's simultaneously trying to replace pip, pyenv, virtualenv, and ruff in one command. 2. You end up needing to use `uv pip` so it's not even a full replacement for pip. 3. It does not play well with Docker. 4. It adds more complexity. You end up needing to understand all of these new enviro…

> 2. You end up needing to use `uv pip` so it's not even a full replacement for pip. Needing pip and virtualenvs was enough to make me realize uv wasn't what I was looking for. If I still need to manage virtualenvs and call pip I'm just going to do so with both of these directly. I had been hoping someone would introduce the non-virtualenv package management solution that every single other language has where there's…

What are you needing to use `uv pip` for? I don't think I ever call into pip from uv for anything nowadays. I typically just need to do `uv sync` and `uv run`, maybe sometimes `uvx` if I want to run some random 3rd party python script

Re: Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade

#90

Post by ivell »

eatonphil wrote: post #74
kyt wrote: post #21

I must be the odd man out but I am not a fan of uv. 1. It tries to do too many things. Please just do one thing and do it well. It's simultaneously trying to replace pip, pyenv, virtualenv, and ruff in one command. 2. You end up needing to use `uv pip` so it's not even a full replacement for pip. 3. It does not play well with Docker. 4. It adds more complexity. You end up needing to understand all of these new enviro…

> 2. You end up needing to use `uv pip` so it's not even a full replacement for pip. Needing pip and virtualenvs was enough to make me realize uv wasn't what I was looking for. If I still need to manage virtualenvs and call pip I'm just going to do so with both of these directly. I had been hoping someone would introduce the non-virtualenv package management solution that every single other language has where there's…

Pixi is an alternative that you may want to try.
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