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Much of Python's growth has been driven by data science. Here, the conda package manager is pretty ubiquitous. Conda packages system and other non-Python depend

Much of Python's growth has been driven by data science. Here, the conda package manager is pretty ubiquitous. Conda packages system and other non-Python dependencies (such as the CUDA SDK), removing the need for data scientists to resolve these non-trivial dependencies themselves. This is likely unneeded/ unwanted for production web app deployments. Given the varied use cases for Python, the goal of a single package manager may be misguided.

mumblemumble 6y ago
My understanding is that the people who developed Conda would love to have stuck with pip, and originally wanted to see about upgrading pip to support their use cases. And it was GvR himself who told them that that wasn't going to happen. That was a long time ago, though, when scientific computing was a small niche for Python. It might have been reasonable to say it's not worthwhile to take on all that extra work just to support the needs of a small minority of users. Fast forward the better part of a decade, and it turns out that scientific computing did not stay a small niche. I think that one could make a strong argument that, in retrospect, that brush-off did not end up ultimately serving the best interests of the Python community. It made the community more fragmentary, in a way that divided, and therefore hindered, efforts at addressing what has proven to be one of Python's biggest pain points.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Conda predates pip by perhaps a decade.
  - mkl 6y ago
    Really? The first release of pip was in 2011 [1] and the earliest release of Conda I can find is 1.1.0 in Nov. 2012 [2], and the first public commit (into an empty repo) was a month earlier [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pip_(package_manager) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pip_(package_manager) [2] https://github.com/conda/conda/tags?after=1.3.0 https://github.com/conda/conda/tags?after=1.3.0 [3] https://github.com/conda/conda/commit/c9aea053d8619e1754b24b7283491b182a01dde8 https://github.com/conda/conda/commit/c9aea053d8619e1754b24b...
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      May be anaconda that I'm thinking of.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        Anaconda was released in 2012, as well. Conda is a tool that is part of anaconda.
        mixmastamyk 6y ago
        This one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_(installer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_(installer) I forgive myself, it's pretty confusing :D.
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        Ah. Name collisions suck.
        mixmastamyk 6y ago
        Especially when they conceptually do the same thing.
        JAlexoid 6y ago
        And that's another issue with Python ecosystem
        mixmastamyk 6y ago
        Why do you think Python is more susceptible than other platforms? It is true that PyPi was designed before the author/project naming scheme popularized by github. Other than that I don't see a greater problem with name collisions in Python.

mumblemumble 6y ago

My understanding is that the people who developed Conda would love to have stuck with pip, and originally wanted to see about upgrading pip to support their use cases. And it was GvR himself who told them that that wasn't going to happen. That was a long time ago, though, when scientific computing was a small niche for Python. It might have been reasonable to say it's not worthwhile to take on all that extra work just to support the needs of a small minority of users. Fast forward the better part of a decade, and it turns out that scientific computing did not stay a small niche. I think that one could make a strong argument that, in retrospect, that brush-off did not end up ultimately serving the best interests of the Python community. It made the community more fragmentary, in a way that divided, and therefore hindered, efforts at addressing what has proven to be one of Python's biggest pain points.

mixmastamyk 6y ago
Conda predates pip by perhaps a decade.
- mkl 6y ago
  Really? The first release of pip was in 2011 [1] and the earliest release of Conda I can find is 1.1.0 in Nov. 2012 [2], and the first public commit (into an empty repo) was a month earlier [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pip_(package_manager) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pip_(package_manager) [2] https://github.com/conda/conda/tags?after=1.3.0 https://github.com/conda/conda/tags?after=1.3.0 [3] https://github.com/conda/conda/commit/c9aea053d8619e1754b24b7283491b182a01dde8 https://github.com/conda/conda/commit/c9aea053d8619e1754b24b...
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    May be anaconda that I'm thinking of.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      Anaconda was released in 2012, as well. Conda is a tool that is part of anaconda.
      - mixmastamyk 6y ago
        This one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_(installer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_(installer) I forgive myself, it's pretty confusing :D.
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        Ah. Name collisions suck.
        mixmastamyk 6y ago
        Especially when they conceptually do the same thing.
        JAlexoid 6y ago
        And that's another issue with Python ecosystem
        mixmastamyk 6y ago
        Why do you think Python is more susceptible than other platforms? It is true that PyPi was designed before the author/project naming scheme popularized by github. Other than that I don't see a greater problem with name collisions in Python.