[dragonsh]

Node and npm are no better than JavaScript tools used for dependency management. I had a project in node 6.0 refuse to work with node 8 and npm failed to upgrade. No different than python 2.7 to Python 3.

Just browser and JavaScript silence the errors and might result in things cannot be seen. This is not the case with Python “No errors must pass silently unless explicitly silenced”.

[uranusjr]

Totally agree; node_modules starts to break horribly when you use the wrong node/npm command to access it. This is unfortunately causing a lot of misconceptions because people usually judge tools by short-term experiementations. node_modules works very well in that scenario and gets the most love--until it doesn’t, you tear hair for those nasty bugs, and sadly can’t even convince people with your experience (“it works perfectly for me, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”)

I guess the node_modules approach is fine for Node, since the native binding story is quite bleak and no very people are deep into it anyway. But for Python this would be a complete no-go given how pervasive extension modules are. I don’t know what went through Ian Bicking’s mind when he first designed virtualenv, but so many aspects of it just reflects that tight cross-language integration Python is so good at (the bin/include/lib structure, copying/symlinking binaries into place, setting up env vars to trick foreign build systems into working, etc.). I wouldn’t want it any other way even if I could go back in time and involve in its original design. Well, maybe a few minor improvements, like offer a more beginner-frieldly interface than activate scripts, or more heavily promote running the binaries directly, but the design is just… correct.