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I’m biased, but I do like Python’s package management much better than Node. Even just regular old virtualenvs. Can’t tell you how many times deleting the node

I’m biased, but I do like Python’s package management much better than Node. Even just regular old virtualenvs. Can’t tell you how many times deleting the node packages dir and reinstalling fixes a weird issue, but that’s happened very rarely for me on the python side. Also, having to comb through a bunch of node packages of dubious quality to find some sort of standard approach happens way too often. Like take python requests vs axios.

revskill 4y ago
I've tried with venv before, and the console (Iterm) just get broken.
phailhaus 4y ago
I'd say that Node's package management has run laps around Python's, to the point where it's pretty embarrassing. Since it's relatively new, it was able to hit the ground running with best practices: 1. Declarative package manifests. Python's ecosystem is still a mess of various approaches, and the fact that you have to run the setup.py script to determine dependencies is a nightmare. Because of this, running dependency resolution and installing is an order of magnitude faster in Node than in Python. 2. Drop-dead simple isolated environments: everything's in `node_modules`. You literally can't make a mistake by blindly running `npm install` in the project dir. With Python it's on you to manage your virtualenv, which boils down to PATH manipulation and symlinks that you'll have to remember to undo when switching around. There's no default for what to call your venv either, so it's on you to settle on a standard and gitignore it. Every time you run `pip install`, you have to hesitate and make sure you're in the right environment, or else risk borking the wrong env (or your global!) 3. Out-of-the-box comprehensive lockfile support. Debugging Python dependency issues is a nightmare. There's literally no way to figure out why a dependency was installed without using 3rd party tools (like pipdeptree). In Node, simply running `npm install` will automatically generate a proper lockfile. I work full stack, and the difference is like night and day. I barely think about dependency management in Node.
- gen220 4y ago
  Respectfully, this reads like you're using outdated Python tools. Give Poetry [1] a shot, it has all the things you've listed here. Just as Node.js has come a long way in the last 5 years, Python has, too. Albeit, in a fashion that was much less centralized, arguably to Python's detriment. [1]: https://python-poetry.org/history/#100---2019-12-12 https://python-poetry.org/history/#100---2019-12-12, released 1.0 in 2019/12.
  - phailhaus 4y ago
    Oh yeah, I've used Poetry. I'm talking about Python out of the box. The dependency management ecosystem is super fractured and relies on 3rd party tools developing their own standards, and even then, they can't overcome fundamental limitations. For example, Poetry is great but locking/installation still takes way longer than Node because there are no declarative manifests.
  - Tigress8780 4y ago
    Poetry can not give you things that do not (always) exist in the ecosystem, like properly declared dependencies [1], which are a must in most other package managers. Poetry can be painfully slow if you happen to depend on many packages that only use `setup.py` to define dependencies. [1] https://python-poetry.org/docs/faq/#why-is-the-dependency-resolution-process-slow https://python-poetry.org/docs/faq/#why-is-the-dependency-re...

revskill 4y ago

I've tried with venv before, and the console (Iterm) just get broken.

phailhaus 4y ago

I'd say that Node's package management has run laps around Python's, to the point where it's pretty embarrassing. Since it's relatively new, it was able to hit the ground running with best practices: 1. Declarative package manifests. Python's ecosystem is still a mess of various approaches, and the fact that you have to run the setup.py script to determine dependencies is a nightmare. Because of this, running dependency resolution and installing is an order of magnitude faster in Node than in Python. 2. Drop-dead simple isolated environments: everything's in `node_modules`. You literally can't make a mistake by blindly running `npm install` in the project dir. With Python it's on you to manage your virtualenv, which boils down to PATH manipulation and symlinks that you'll have to remember to undo when switching around. There's no default for what to call your venv either, so it's on you to settle on a standard and gitignore it. Every time you run `pip install`, you have to hesitate and make sure you're in the right environment, or else risk borking the wrong env (or your global!) 3. Out-of-the-box comprehensive lockfile support. Debugging Python dependency issues is a nightmare. There's literally no way to figure out why a dependency was installed without using 3rd party tools (like pipdeptree). In Node, simply running `npm install` will automatically generate a proper lockfile. I work full stack, and the difference is like night and day. I barely think about dependency management in Node.

gen220 4y ago
Respectfully, this reads like you're using outdated Python tools. Give Poetry [1] a shot, it has all the things you've listed here. Just as Node.js has come a long way in the last 5 years, Python has, too. Albeit, in a fashion that was much less centralized, arguably to Python's detriment. [1]: https://python-poetry.org/history/#100---2019-12-12 https://python-poetry.org/history/#100---2019-12-12, released 1.0 in 2019/12.
- phailhaus 4y ago
  Oh yeah, I've used Poetry. I'm talking about Python out of the box. The dependency management ecosystem is super fractured and relies on 3rd party tools developing their own standards, and even then, they can't overcome fundamental limitations. For example, Poetry is great but locking/installation still takes way longer than Node because there are no declarative manifests.
- Tigress8780 4y ago
  Poetry can not give you things that do not (always) exist in the ecosystem, like properly declared dependencies [1], which are a must in most other package managers. Poetry can be painfully slow if you happen to depend on many packages that only use `setup.py` to define dependencies. [1] https://python-poetry.org/docs/faq/#why-is-the-dependency-resolution-process-slow https://python-poetry.org/docs/faq/#why-is-the-dependency-re...