[Annatar]

Great idea, but the delivery leaves much to be desired: I am not going to run "pip install" and bypass the software management subsystem of my operating system, thereby compromising the integrity of my system. No OS package, no install.

[gtk40]

He already provides packaging for Arch, probably what he uses. It's probably just a question of what resources he has available. Many of us are content to use a tarball or pip.

[vanous]

Debian installs pip in user's local storage. Plus, use virtualenv, it's great!

[gourneau]

Why not just use a virtual env?

[Annatar]

What is a "virtual env"? Why am I expected to know this just to run an end-user application? Is my spare time completely worthless?

Steve Jobs would have had a field day with this one, if he were alive!

[bootload]

"the delivery leaves much to be desired"

If you have access to the source, that is all you need.

[sixhobbits]

Genuinely curious - how does installing a Python library through pip 'compromise the integrity of [your] system'?

[vanous]

The distribution packages are often carefully tuned to match compatible versions, with pip, you might add something that the packaging system doesn't account for. I disliked pip ever since but the virtualenv idea sounds good.

[maweki]

pip install --user and you have a local installation leaving everything untouched. As you have a local npm/cabal/gem package store.

[Annatar]

So now it is expected of me to learn some programming language's private packaging system, just to use an application?

Nope, that won't fly.

[Annatar]

My operating system wouldn't know about this new content, which means that it would not be automatically reproducible. There would now be a change to the system that the system doesn't know about.

I don't do that. On my system every single change to every single file is encapsulated inside of an OS package. The integrity of the OS content is not compromised in any way, because the OS knows about every single application's file. Emphasis on application's file, as opposed to just raw data.

[totony]

Just make one, it's usually straightforward