Talk Python to Me 406

Talk Python to Me 406

Published on in know-notes, talk-python-to-me & python.

Talk Python to Me 406

Guests

Overview

The guests agree that there is a problem but not how to solve it. The community has the appetite to solve this problem now, but does it have the momentum to follow through.

Some Takeaways

  • Python packaging is a bit interesting/different from other languagus in that Python does not itself provide many of the distributions, leaving that up to the individual platform communities, e.g. Ubuntu.
  • pip occupies a special seat at the table because it ships with Python, but is it the right tool.

My Thoughts

pyenv
No mention of pyenv as a possible tool.

pipenv
No mention of how the community (and python.org) backed pipenv.

conda
conda has been around for 10 years. Why hasn't it won the war?

dependency hell
No discussion of the specifics of dependency hell that the current resolvers in all major tools have, i.e. lacking the ability to override "incompatible" transitive dependencies, though Ofek hinted at something ...

differences between libraries and applications
Ofek mentioned that Python has a woeful application development experience. Coincidentally, I discussed this with Erik, CTO of CloudZero, this week. Libraries and Applications have different tooling requirements. For example:

  • Applications should pin dependencies, Libraries should not
  • Applications target 1 Python version, Libraries target many

lockfiles
Ofek rightly brings up that the lack of a lockfile standard hampers solving dependency problems.

tl;dr;

I'm concerned that Python's community is overly democratic w.r.t to tooling. Perhaps a BDFL would be able to rally the troops around a common solution faster than discord discussions.