6 ms·

I've never encountered the "X requires unstated requirement Y, which fails to build because of obscure compiler error" issue, I would have liked if the author n

by smcl 10y ago

I've never encountered the "X requires unstated requirement Y, which fails to build because of obscure compiler error" issue, I would have liked if the author named X and Y. However the documentation is totally a fair point. The "re" module is an excellent example - it starts off with a handful of relatively verbose introductory paragraphs and then dives straight into an extremely comprehensive list of special characters. The good news is that all the information you need is there somewhere but sadly it's hard to get there. Another commenter pointed out the Table of Contents, which for some reason my eyes just completely ignore by default. Maybe the font colour doesn't contrast with the background (aquamarine-ish on blue) or the line-spacing makes it tough. Certainly the numbered prefixes do not help, or the fact that the headings aren't actually particularly useful (sorry if you're responsible for the documentation, I like it overall I'm just searching for reasons why it's hard to read the side-menu). I wish I had the time to help out, and the UX know-how to contribute to making it better. I'd feel awful if I pitched in and made things worse :(

edent 10y ago
I tried installing OpenCV2. I needed to get Pip, then I tried to install OpenCV2, but it required a whole bunch of other stuff, which I had to compile, which failed. Was a very frustrating afternoon.
- vram22 10y ago
  If on Windows, google Christoph Gohlke's (spelling?) big list of pre-compiled Python modules.
  - edent 10y ago
    How do I know to do that? Most projects just say "Install OpenCV" or, if you're lucky, give you the step-by-step for doing a pip install. Assuming you already have pip.
    - Klathmon 10y ago
      I remember the first time I sat down to really do something with python, step 1 was setup a virtual environment... I never got to step 2 that week
    - vram22 10y ago
      >How do I know to do that? The answer, unfortunately, is: you don't - at least not from the docs of all libraries you are trying to use. Maybe from some. I found it by googling - so shared it, since it might help you. A less than perfect system, I know. Yes, I remember that installing pip itself was slightly tricky or involved, a while ago. I think they have made it simpler in recent versions, and it also comes pre-installed with some Python versions, likely 3.x and recent versions of 2.x.
- skvark 10y ago
  Python's packaging system was and is still sometimes somewhat broken. However, it's getting better: compilation related issues are rarer nowadays thanks to the wheel pre-built package format (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0491/ https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0491/). Another great thing is the manylinux tag (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0513/ https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0513/) which allows to create portable packages which are compatible with many distributions + contain all required dependencies. For example, I didn't want to compile anymore OpenCV all the time by myself so I made it available as wheel package in PyPI: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/opencv-python https://pypi.python.org/pypi/opencv-python
thewhitetulip 10y ago
>build because of obscure compiler error Exactly what I had in mind, I never got such problems at least in installing libraries, how can that be an issue since we have pip? yes, some badly maintained libraries will have this, but that's the library author's issue and not a problem with Python's pip, on the contrary pip is working exactly fine if it complains.
burntsushi 10y ago
> I've never encountered the "X requires unstated requirement Y, which fails to build because of obscure compiler error" issue, I would have liked if the author named X and Y. I maintain an open source Python project that tends to attract non-programmers or beginner programmers. This happens all the time. Case in point: https://github.com/BurntSushi/nfldb/issues/175 https://github.com/BurntSushi/nfldb/issues/175 And that's a good case, because the error message is actually pretty nice compared to some others I've seen. But for a beginner user, learning to make the complete connection I wrote in my comment[1] on that thread is totally non-trivial. [1] - https://github.com/BurntSushi/nfldb/issues/175#issuecomment-243313714 https://github.com/BurntSushi/nfldb/issues/175#issuecomment-...
Eridrus 10y ago
> I've never encountered the "X requires unstated requirement Y, which fails to build because of obscure compiler error" issue, I would have liked if the author named X and Y. I've encountered this sort of thing plenty; usually it's not a python package that's required, it's a package you need to apt-get, and then another error pops up because that first one wasn't the only thing you needed.
deleted 10y ago
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by smcl 10y ago

edent 10y ago

I tried installing OpenCV2. I needed to get Pip, then I tried to install OpenCV2, but it required a whole bunch of other stuff, which I had to compile, which failed. Was a very frustrating afternoon.

vram22 10y ago
If on Windows, google Christoph Gohlke's (spelling?) big list of pre-compiled Python modules.
- edent 10y ago
  How do I know to do that? Most projects just say "Install OpenCV" or, if you're lucky, give you the step-by-step for doing a pip install. Assuming you already have pip.
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    I remember the first time I sat down to really do something with python, step 1 was setup a virtual environment... I never got to step 2 that week
  - vram22 10y ago
    >How do I know to do that? The answer, unfortunately, is: you don't - at least not from the docs of all libraries you are trying to use. Maybe from some. I found it by googling - so shared it, since it might help you. A less than perfect system, I know. Yes, I remember that installing pip itself was slightly tricky or involved, a while ago. I think they have made it simpler in recent versions, and it also comes pre-installed with some Python versions, likely 3.x and recent versions of 2.x.
skvark 10y ago
Python's packaging system was and is still sometimes somewhat broken. However, it's getting better: compilation related issues are rarer nowadays thanks to the wheel pre-built package format (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0491/ https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0491/). Another great thing is the manylinux tag (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0513/ https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0513/) which allows to create portable packages which are compatible with many distributions + contain all required dependencies. For example, I didn't want to compile anymore OpenCV all the time by myself so I made it available as wheel package in PyPI: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/opencv-python https://pypi.python.org/pypi/opencv-python

thewhitetulip 10y ago

>build because of obscure compiler error Exactly what I had in mind, I never got such problems at least in installing libraries, how can that be an issue since we have pip? yes, some badly maintained libraries will have this, but that's the library author's issue and not a problem with Python's pip, on the contrary pip is working exactly fine if it complains.

burntsushi 10y ago

> I've never encountered the "X requires unstated requirement Y, which fails to build because of obscure compiler error" issue, I would have liked if the author named X and Y. I maintain an open source Python project that tends to attract non-programmers or beginner programmers. This happens all the time. Case in point: https://github.com/BurntSushi/nfldb/issues/175 https://github.com/BurntSushi/nfldb/issues/175 And that's a good case, because the error message is actually pretty nice compared to some others I've seen. But for a beginner user, learning to make the complete connection I wrote in my comment[1] on that thread is totally non-trivial. [1] - https://github.com/BurntSushi/nfldb/issues/175#issuecomment-243313714 https://github.com/BurntSushi/nfldb/issues/175#issuecomment-...

Eridrus 10y ago

> I've never encountered the "X requires unstated requirement Y, which fails to build because of obscure compiler error" issue, I would have liked if the author named X and Y. I've encountered this sort of thing plenty; usually it's not a python package that's required, it's a package you need to apt-get, and then another error pops up because that first one wasn't the only thing you needed.

deleted 10y ago

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