Some people I work with have had major issues with Conda packaging. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. This can be especially tricky when you’re working with sy

Some people I work with have had major issues with Conda packaging. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. This can be especially tricky when you’re working with system libraries with competing versions. I still have no idea how a particular set of tools has ever run, given their configuration. The exact same Conda packages work on a local Mac, but fail on a Linux server. It can be frustrating. Because of this, I try to avoid it as much as possible. I think Conda is trying too hard to hit the middle ground between full containers (Docker or Singularity) and virtualenv’s. If your program is too complicated to be managed with a venv, it’s better to package it up as a full container and be done with it. Also, I don’t think Conda would have helped here when the problem is lack of specific Python versions installed at the system level. On a Mac (and everywhere, really), I try my best to avoid the main system Python install and use a user-local (compiled) install when I need a specific version that isn’t available by default.