Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by 9dev 1191 days ago
Oh, yeah? It’s working great? Like figuring out which packages your application actually uses? Or having separate development and production dependencies? Upgrading outdated libraries?

Having taken a deep-dive into refactoring a large python app, I can confidently say that package management in python is a pain compared to other interpreted languages.
2 comments
rowanseymour 1191 days ago
Virtual environments aren't package management. For example we use Poetry for package management - it supports separate dev and prod dependencies, upgrading etc. It generates a virtual environment.
link
9dev 1191 days ago
The distinction feels entirely academic to me. Managing packages means having a sane way to define the dependencies of software projects, so they can be checked into version control and be installed reproducibly later and/or elsewhere.

I don’t know which problem python intended to solve by separating the two, but it doesn’t occur often in contemporary software engineering work.

Having said that, the point you make is valid and Poetry is a good option, but it feels so maddening having to learn about like seven different tools which all do more or less the same but not quite, and everyone and their mother having an opinion on which is the best. Doesn’t help that there’s an arbitrary yet blurry line where package managers end and environment managers begin.

link
peterhil 1191 days ago
I strongly agree with this, and I have been actively using Python since 2009.

Trying top keep a Pygame/Numpy/Scipy project working has been a real struggle. I started it with Python 2 and ported to Python 3 some years ago. The whole Python 3 transition is a huge mess with every Python 3 point release breaking some things. No other interpreted language’s packaging system is so fucked up.

On a positive note: Lately I've liked using pdm instead of pip, and things seem to work quite a lot better. I evaluated Poetry, Flit and something else also.

I just commented about this on Twitter, when someone asked “Which programming language do you consider beginner's friendly?” https://twitter.com/peterhil/status/1633793218411126789

link