[cjhanks]

This is possible and actually pretty trivial.

You install all 3rd party dependencies into some directory. The command line entry point is then a simple BASH script which sets the PYTHONPATH to the appropriate installation location and then does the appropriate exec call.

You then have a functionally portable python installation.

[lugg]

Pretty trivial?

Really?

I think as soon as you start writing all caps trivial has gone right out the window.

Trivial would be application dependencies managed by the system package manager.

I'm at the point where I won't touch a python app or library that can't be installed via Pacman. It's just not worth my time.

And... python is still the only thing on arch that gives me the shits everytime it upgrades.

[throwawaymath]

This exchange is a good demonstration that the word "trivial" has lost its meaning in the same way "literal" has. Much like I usually hear someone use term "literally" for figurative emphasis, these days I mostly hear the word "trivial" used to describe something which is clearly nontrivial.

Math textbooks have been doing this for decades, but it's leaked into common parlance with online discussion.

[ezequiel-garzon]

I believe in the mathematical community the potentially offensive term for outsiders is non-trivial, used in a technically correct manner, but oftentimes applied as synonymous of epically hard, which unexpectedly throws people off, especially the author of that non-trivial work!

[CogitoCogito]

I think the best translation of "trivial" when used amongst mathematicians is that it is something you should be able to figure out with your current knowledge without too much difficulty (though it might require an hour of thought). Said in another way, you don't need to learn/develop new tools or techniques for something that is trivial.

Of course this is not when most people think when they hear the word so really it's a term of art that should probably be avoided when talking to non-mathematicians.

[Ntrails]

> I think the best translation of "trivial" when used amongst mathematicians is that it is something you should be able to figure out with your current knowledge without too much difficulty

As i read through my old uni maths notes there are often wild leaps from a to e along with a little scrawl saying "trivially" or "obviously". They may have been true once, but god dammit 21 year old me was a knobber

[cjhanks]

It takes approximately a year to learn to walk after you are born. But almost everybody figures it out. And once they know, they practically never forget. So I don't know, is it not trivial?

I have never had to support all of the mobile environments of DropBox nor the scale, so I cannot claim that my 99% solution would ever meet their 99.999% requirements. But I have been able to package Python apps for Mac OSX, WinVista, Win7, Ubuntu, and CentOS at the same time using that strategy.

[NLips]

Being charitable, I think the parent means that the python developer sticks all the dependencies in a directory and creates a bash script to set PYTHONPATH and launch. The user receives a directory rather than an executable, but only has to use the bash script, rather than worry about any of the Python in the directory.

[Already__Taken]

Now your lovingly created cross-platform app is back to linux only because you used bash to invoke it.

[weberc2]

Use a Python script instead.

[oblio]

Nah, he should use some turtles instead.

[orf]

Isn't this just a hacky virtualenv? 'python3 -mvenv dir && ./dir/bin/pip install requirements'?

[jofer]

There are a lot of minor differences, but the biggest difference is that you're able to be completely independent of the system python install. You bundle a complete python interpreter, all libraries needed, etc.

The user doesn't need to have python installed at all, and if they have 2.x instead of 3.x or 3.3 when you're expecting features that are only present in >= 3.5, it's no issue.

This may sound trivial, but it's a _huge_ deal, particularly when you need to deploy something that runs on multiple different OSes and versions of OSes.

Other than that, the "directory full of libs, binaries, and code" approach is a lot easier to package into something that will work well with the native package manager (e.g. an .msi for windows, etc).

[rtpg]

in the ideal, those making the tools would provide this packaging, instead of asking all users to have `pip` properly set up. Similar issues exist w/r/t npm in my opinion.