[wishitwerentso]

35 years is misleading. Python existed, yes, but was very different. e.g. Pandas was released in 2008. Most use packages much more recent than that. 35 years ago Perl was faster than Python and had deep adoption (through 2007? or so)

[simonw]

How is it misleading?

The question is why Python packaging has such a complicated history. The age of the language is entirely relevant to that - the reason Go and Rust have it so good here is that they are much younger, coming out after may of the initial packaging lessons had been learned elsewhere.

[wishitwerentso]

it is misleading because I was around 35 years ago, and very few people were using Python. Python did not become very popular until web frameworks and pandas became a thing in python.

[wishitwerentso]

if you doubt this, ask any llm "what was the first year where Python users surpassed the number of Perl users?"

[simonw]

I still don't understand why that makes what I wrote "misleading". I never said Python was popular 35 years, I just said that the age of the language was relevant to understanding why the packaging history is complex.