Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by king_geedorah 786 days ago
I had to install a couple of alternative python versions on my dev machine at work and found it was easiest for me to just build from source and `make altinstall` with a custom prefix set. From there I just always work in virtual environments. This doesn't seem to have created any major problems for me, so something like asdf doesn't feel necessary. Is there something serious that I've missed or is this just a case of different preferred workflows?
3 comments
bmitc 786 days ago
> I had to install a couple of alternative python versions on my dev machine at work and found it was easiest for me to just build from source and `make altinstall` with a custom prefix set.

That's basically what asdf does, just automated.

link
king_geedorah 786 days ago
Does asdf automatically pull in its own copies of libraries for relevant functionality? For example I needed headers for readline in order to get that going on my compiled interpreters. If it avoids that then that could be a reason to use one over the other at least on new systems.

Edit: Decided to peruse the code for the python asdf plugin myself and it seems to just use pyenv under the hood anyway, so I guess it's not really a question of what asdf does anyway.

link
eddyg 786 days ago
If you have a requirement for multiple, specific Python versions, why not just use pyenv?

https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv

link
king_geedorah 786 days ago
That's not an unreasonable question. I don't really have a good answer to it outside of I found building and installing the couple that I needed myself to be fine and don't mind invoking as `python3.11` or what have you, since it's only different when I'm initialising my venvs.
link
e12e 786 days ago
How do you update the list of installed python versions?

Generally asdf shines when you need more than one system installed - say a html or SQL language server that depends on node in addition to python for your main app.

link
king_geedorah 786 days ago
> How do you update the list of installed python versions?

There are only three for me and I don't have a reason for more in the near future, so I just remember.

> Generally asdf shines when you need more than one system installed

Makes a little more sense to me.

link