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> as it is hands down the best dependency manager available from any language Why? You don't back that statement up with anything. What makes it better than `p

by orf 11y ago

> as it is hands down the best dependency manager available from any language Why? You don't back that statement up with anything. What makes it better than `pip`? > node isn't even close, since you need a c++ compiler to actually get quite a few packages Well if the packages contain C/C++ modules and don't distribute binaries... (which a lot do). In Python land packages with a C++ module normally have a pure-python fallback anyway.

soofaloofa 11y ago
Recently moving from Python to Java. `pip` doesn't even come close to Maven. Dependency management used to be something I needed to manage much more closely in Python. With Maven, it just works.
- orf 11y ago
  I'm just curious as to why. You specify a list of requirements and their versions, and those get pulled down from somewhere and installed locally. What makes Mavens process far superior to pip (or npm, or any other program)?
  - rnovak 11y ago
    Because with JVM languages, and their "horrid" backwards compatibility (that everyone always loves to bash), I can declare dependencies on libraries written in Java 1.1, and it will JUST WORK. From what I understand, there's a fairly large chasm between Python 2/3 (such that a lot of people use external libraries to deal with coding cross-compatibile code, and apparently get wrong some-times).
Eridrus 11y ago
> In Python land packages with a C++ module normally have a pure-python fallback anyway. Completely not true in my experience. Running pip install and finding out a dependency is native code is the worst feeling, because now I need to replicate a dev environment for building the damn thing, on windows I don't even bother, on linux I'm left hunting down the right linux packages, which if someone bothered to specify was only specified for one of the distros. > Why? You don't back that statement up with anything. What makes it better than `pip`? I'm not super familiar with the python ecosystem, but my biggest gripe is above (randomly, dependencies will fail to install). My second gripe with python is that so many things need virtualenv. In this regard I've had a lot less pain with npm (but I've also done far fewer things in node), and I've never had an issue using a library in the java ecosystem, I just plug the appropriate deps into my build system, and it works, no installation required. Beyond "can I use the packages easily", Maven also supports artifactory so that we can have org-wide libraries rather than needing to rely on git to avoid duplicating files everywhere. Beyond that Maven is also the Grunt of the Java world; it compiles your code, it invokes JUnit, it runs your fancy code rewriting modules, it does your jar/war packaging, and runs all the other modules you want. Maven has it's own issues sometimes, but having too much XML is so far down the list of things I care about, but Gradle is nice too and the syntax is much more terse and I try to use it for my own non-work projects. In contrast to the general "install a pile of things not in your dependency manager" approach of pip/npm, I just setup a java project to use webkit (with no prior experience trying to do this in java at all) in 5 minutes by adding 2 entries to a pom.xml file as described on https://github.com/ui4j/ui4j/ https://github.com/ui4j/ui4j/
rnovak 11y ago
Well, I don't have that much experience with Python, but by your own admission: packages with a C++ module normally... Sorry, but 'normally' doesn't cut it for me (or the organizations that I work/worked for). I can use ANY maven dependency, regardless of what JVM language it was built with, what language level (java 1.1 - 1.8) it was built with, pretty much anything.

by orf 11y ago

soofaloofa 11y ago

Recently moving from Python to Java. `pip` doesn't even come close to Maven. Dependency management used to be something I needed to manage much more closely in Python. With Maven, it just works.

orf 11y ago
I'm just curious as to why. You specify a list of requirements and their versions, and those get pulled down from somewhere and installed locally. What makes Mavens process far superior to pip (or npm, or any other program)?
- rnovak 11y ago
  Because with JVM languages, and their "horrid" backwards compatibility (that everyone always loves to bash), I can declare dependencies on libraries written in Java 1.1, and it will JUST WORK. From what I understand, there's a fairly large chasm between Python 2/3 (such that a lot of people use external libraries to deal with coding cross-compatibile code, and apparently get wrong some-times).

Eridrus 11y ago

> In Python land packages with a C++ module normally have a pure-python fallback anyway. Completely not true in my experience. Running pip install and finding out a dependency is native code is the worst feeling, because now I need to replicate a dev environment for building the damn thing, on windows I don't even bother, on linux I'm left hunting down the right linux packages, which if someone bothered to specify was only specified for one of the distros. > Why? You don't back that statement up with anything. What makes it better than `pip`? I'm not super familiar with the python ecosystem, but my biggest gripe is above (randomly, dependencies will fail to install). My second gripe with python is that so many things need virtualenv. In this regard I've had a lot less pain with npm (but I've also done far fewer things in node), and I've never had an issue using a library in the java ecosystem, I just plug the appropriate deps into my build system, and it works, no installation required. Beyond "can I use the packages easily", Maven also supports artifactory so that we can have org-wide libraries rather than needing to rely on git to avoid duplicating files everywhere. Beyond that Maven is also the Grunt of the Java world; it compiles your code, it invokes JUnit, it runs your fancy code rewriting modules, it does your jar/war packaging, and runs all the other modules you want. Maven has it's own issues sometimes, but having too much XML is so far down the list of things I care about, but Gradle is nice too and the syntax is much more terse and I try to use it for my own non-work projects. In contrast to the general "install a pile of things not in your dependency manager" approach of pip/npm, I just setup a java project to use webkit (with no prior experience trying to do this in java at all) in 5 minutes by adding 2 entries to a pom.xml file as described on https://github.com/ui4j/ui4j/ https://github.com/ui4j/ui4j/

rnovak 11y ago

Well, I don't have that much experience with Python, but by your own admission: packages with a C++ module normally... Sorry, but 'normally' doesn't cut it for me (or the organizations that I work/worked for). I can use ANY maven dependency, regardless of what JVM language it was built with, what language level (java 1.1 - 1.8) it was built with, pretty much anything.