> "why can't you just use pip?" IMO, pip is great, but it has exactly two use cases where it's warranted. One is where you need to be your own maintainer, e.g.

> "why can't you just use pip?" IMO, pip is great, but it has exactly two use cases where it's warranted. One is where you need to be your own maintainer, e.g. you've developed a private web server to run your website, and you need to manage its dependency versions precisely. The other is for development purposes: it's really great to be able to use different versions of Python or test against different libraries than your distribution ships. It's not (or shouldn't be) for shipping software to end users. That's the problem being complained about in the essay. This particular way of handling dependencies (use system libraries by default, but allow the user / developer to create an entire virtualized Python installation if they want one) is actually why I think Python handles this better than most other languages, including older ones.