[necovek]

Usually running pip as root overcame that problem — but it did cause all the other problems virtualenvs were introduced to work around (so I am not suggesting this as the solution).

You are right that there are many problems with packaging in Python, and yet I feel like virtualenvs are the smallest of those.

I believe we also need to compare tech this old to tech from the same era: obviously newer ecosystems had the benefit of hindsight, but how does managing dependencies compare between Perl and Python, for instance?

The biggest problem with Python packaging is — IMO at least — that it is actually attracting so many evolutions and proposals that ot is hard to stay on top of if you do not make Python packaging your core interest.

[chuckadams]

For managing dependencies in Perl, it was originally a similar story to Python: everything was system-installed, but many people would install things to their home dir and set PERL5LIB in their .bashrc. The cpan client was smart enough to detect and use the home install when writing its initial config, so you could call it a day. Later there was local::lib which fiddled @INC for the use of a project-local directory, and cpanminus defaulted to using it, and then Carton came around which is more or less a clone of Bundler from Ruby, also using local::lib under the covers.