Re:Underappreciated challenges with Python packaging
by xorcist on Wednesday January 04, 2023 @02:05PM
(#34249901)
Not really. CPAN was already a thing when Python itself was released, long before there was any Python packages to share.
Re:Underappreciated challenges with Python packaging
by pxc on Friday January 06, 2023 @01:37PM
(#34278922)
* * *
Re:Underappreciated challenges with Python packaging
by hot_gril on Wednesday January 04, 2023 @03:33PM
(#34251083)
That makes sense. Backwards compatibility can be a large burden. I'm still sad that they haven't managed to make a new thing that just works. NodeJS is repurposing a language and runtime originally meant for hacky web scripting, but it ended up ok in the end.
If they don't fix their issues, someone else will provide a solution at a higher layer. Now it's common to install a Docker image to run something instead of a few Python deps.
Unlike Node, Python is essentially older than modern package management. When Python developers first decided to tackle distributing their code, `apt-get` did not yet exist.
Early approaches which stuck around way too long let any package do more or less anything at install time, and didn't bother with static metadata (can't figure out what your deps are except by attempting an install!). Subsequent solutions have struggled to build consensus in an already vast and mature ecosystem. Backwards compatibility means compatibility with bad conventions.