5 ms·

The successful languages without efficient dependency management are painful to manage dependencies in, though. I think Python should be shooting for a better p

by jolux 2y ago

The successful languages without efficient dependency management are painful to manage dependencies in, though. I think Python should be shooting for a better package management user experience than C++.

yosefk 2y ago
If Python's dependency management is better than anything, it's better than C++'s. Python has pip and venv. C++ has nothing (you could say less than nothing since you also have ample opportunity for inconsistent build due to mismatching #defines as well as using the wrong binaries for your .h files and nothing remotely like type-safe linkage to mitigate human error. It also has an infinite number of build systems where each system of makefiles or cmakefiles is its own build system with its own conventions and features). In fact python is the best dependency management system for C++ code when you can get binaries build from C++ via pip install...
- wiseowise 2y ago
  > If Python's dependency management is better than anything, it's better than C++'s. That’s like the lowest possible bar to clear.
  - yosefk 2y ago
    Agreed, but that was the bar set by the comment I was replying to, which claimed Python doesn't clear it.
  - vulnbludog 2y ago
    On bro
- stavros 2y ago
  That was the entire point, that C++ is the absolute worst.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    I pip3 installed something today. It didn’t work, at all. I then yum installed a lib and headers, it worked well. C++ on an msft platform is the worst. I can’t speak for Mac. C++ on a linux is quite pleasant. Feels like most of the comments like yours are biased for un-stated reasons.
    - stavros 2y ago
      If I had a penny for every time I gave up on compiling C++ software because there's no way to know what dependencies it needs, I'd be a millionaire. Python at least lists them.
      - dgfitz 2y ago
        If I had a penny every time I heard something like that on sites like this, I’d be a billionaire :)
      - ahartmetz 2y ago
        Is that because the compiler failed with "foo.h not found" or the build system said "libfoo not found"? CMake is most common and it will tell you. Worst case it's difficult to derive the package name from the name in the diagnostic. It's not great, but usually not a big deal neither IME. Typically a couple of minutes to e.g. find that required libSDL2 addon module or whatever, if there is that kind of problem at all.
        stavros 2y ago
        Yes it is, and it's usually such a big deal for me that I just don't use that software. I don't have time to go through a loop of "what's the file name? What package is it in? Install, repeat". This is by far the worst experience I've had with any language. Python has been a breeze in comparison.
        dgfitz 2y ago
        I’m not going to refute your points. If you’re going to wear rose-tinted glasses about all of the bad parts about python, that’s fine, I also like python.
- andmkl 2y ago
  C++ has apt-get etc. because the libraries do not change all the time. Also, of course there are vcpkg and conan. Whenever you try to build something via pip, the build will invariably fail. The times that NumPy built from source from PyPI are long over. In fact, at least 50% of attempted package builds fail. The alternative of binary wheels is flaky.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    > C++ has apt-get That's not a development dependency manager. System package management is a different kind of issue, even if there's a bit of overlap. > because the libraries do not change all the time That's not true in practice. Spend enough time with larger projects or do some software packaging and you'll learn that the pain is everywhere.
Galanwe 2y ago
Not sure this is still a valid critic of Python in 2024. Between pip, poetry and pyproject.toml, things are now quite good IMHO.
- Arcanum-XIII 2y ago
  All is well, then, one day, you have to update one library. Some days later, in some woods or cave, people will hear your screams of rage and despair.
  - Galanwe 2y ago
    Been using python for 15 years now, and these screams were never heard. Dev/test with relaxed pip installs, freeze deployment dependencies with pip freeze/pip-tools/poetry/whateveryoulike, and what's the problem?
    - neeleshs 2y ago
      same here. Been using python/pip for 10+ years and this was never a problem. In the java world, there is jar hell, but it was never a crippling issue, but a minor annoyance once a year or so. In general, is dependency management such a massive problem it is made to be on HN? Maybe people here are doing far more complex/different things than I've done in the past 20 years
    - mixmastamyk 2y ago
      Guessing that folks who write such things are lacking sysad skills like manipulating paths, etc. It does take Python expertise to fix other issues on occasion but they are fixable. Why I think flags like ‘pip —break-system-packages’ are silly. It’s an optimization for non-users over experienced ones.
- arp242 2y ago
  I guess that depends from your perspective. I'm not a Python developer, but like many people I do want to run Python programs from time to time. I don't really know Rust, or Cargo, but I never have trouble building any Rust program: "cargo build [--release]" is all I need to know. Easy. Even many C programs are actually quite easy: "./configure", "make", and optionally "make install". "./configure" has a nice "--help". There is a lot to be said about the ugly generated autotools soup, but the UX for people just wanting to build/run it without in-depth knowledge of the system is actually quite decent. cmake is a regression here. With Python, "pip install" gives me an entire screen full of errors about venv and "externally managed" and whatnot. I don't care. I just want to run it. I don't want a bunch of venvs, I just want to install or run the damn program. I've taken to just use "pip install --break-system-packages", which installs to ~/.local. It works shrug. Last time I wanted to just run a project with a few small modifications I had a hard time. I ended up just editing ~/.local/lib/python/[...] Again, it worked so whatever. All of this is really where Python and some other languages/build systems fail. Many people running this are not $language_x programmers or experts, and I don't want to read up on every system I come across. That's not a reasonable demand. Any system that doesn't allow non-users of that language to use it in simple easy steps needs work. Python's system is one such system.
est 2y ago
Deps in CPython are more about .so/.dll problem, not much can be done since stuff happens outside python itself.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
Python's dependency management sucks because they're audacious enough to attempt packaging non-python dependencies. People always bring Maven up as a system that got it right, but Maven only does JVM things. I think the real solution here is to just only use python dependency management for python things and to use something like nix for everything else.
- adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
  Julia's package manager (for one) works great and can manage non Julia packages. the problem with python's system is that rejecting semver makes writing a package manager basically impossible since there is no way to automatically resolve packages.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    Could you clarify what you mean? pip and every other Python package installer is absolutely doing automatic package resolution, and the standard (PEP 440) dependency operators include a compatible version operator (~=) that's predicated on SemVer-style version behavior.
- pletnes 2y ago
  This is what we used to have and it was much worse. Source: lived that life 10-15 y ago.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    15y ago I was using apt-get to manage my c++ dependencies with no way of keeping track of which dependency went with which project. It was indeed pretty awful. Now when I cd into a project, direnv + nix notices the dependencies that that project needs and makes them available, whatever their language. When I cd into a different project, I get an entirely different set of dependencies. There's pretty much nothing installed with system scope. Just a shell and an editor. Both of these are language agnostic, but the level of encapsulation is quite different and one is much better than that other. (There are still plenty of problems, but they can be fixed with a commit instead of a change of habit.) The idea that every language needs a different package manager and that each of those needs to package everything that might my useful when called from that language whether or not it is written in that language... It just doesn't scale.
galdosdi 2y ago
The shitshow that is python tooling is one of the reasons I prefer java jobs to python jobs when I can help it. Java got this pretty right years and years and years earlier. Why are python and javascript continuing to horse around playing games?

by jolux 2y ago

yosefk 2y ago

If Python's dependency management is better than anything, it's better than C++'s. Python has pip and venv. C++ has nothing (you could say less than nothing since you also have ample opportunity for inconsistent build due to mismatching #defines as well as using the wrong binaries for your .h files and nothing remotely like type-safe linkage to mitigate human error. It also has an infinite number of build systems where each system of makefiles or cmakefiles is its own build system with its own conventions and features). In fact python is the best dependency management system for C++ code when you can get binaries build from C++ via pip install...

wiseowise 2y ago
> If Python's dependency management is better than anything, it's better than C++'s. That’s like the lowest possible bar to clear.
- yosefk 2y ago
  Agreed, but that was the bar set by the comment I was replying to, which claimed Python doesn't clear it.
- vulnbludog 2y ago
  On bro
stavros 2y ago
That was the entire point, that C++ is the absolute worst.
- dgfitz 2y ago
  I pip3 installed something today. It didn’t work, at all. I then yum installed a lib and headers, it worked well. C++ on an msft platform is the worst. I can’t speak for Mac. C++ on a linux is quite pleasant. Feels like most of the comments like yours are biased for un-stated reasons.
  - stavros 2y ago
    If I had a penny for every time I gave up on compiling C++ software because there's no way to know what dependencies it needs, I'd be a millionaire. Python at least lists them.
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      If I had a penny every time I heard something like that on sites like this, I’d be a billionaire :)
    - ahartmetz 2y ago
      Is that because the compiler failed with "foo.h not found" or the build system said "libfoo not found"? CMake is most common and it will tell you. Worst case it's difficult to derive the package name from the name in the diagnostic. It's not great, but usually not a big deal neither IME. Typically a couple of minutes to e.g. find that required libSDL2 addon module or whatever, if there is that kind of problem at all.
      - stavros 2y ago
        Yes it is, and it's usually such a big deal for me that I just don't use that software. I don't have time to go through a loop of "what's the file name? What package is it in? Install, repeat". This is by far the worst experience I've had with any language. Python has been a breeze in comparison.
        dgfitz 2y ago
        I’m not going to refute your points. If you’re going to wear rose-tinted glasses about all of the bad parts about python, that’s fine, I also like python.
andmkl 2y ago
C++ has apt-get etc. because the libraries do not change all the time. Also, of course there are vcpkg and conan. Whenever you try to build something via pip, the build will invariably fail. The times that NumPy built from source from PyPI are long over. In fact, at least 50% of attempted package builds fail. The alternative of binary wheels is flaky.
- viraptor 2y ago
  > C++ has apt-get That's not a development dependency manager. System package management is a different kind of issue, even if there's a bit of overlap. > because the libraries do not change all the time That's not true in practice. Spend enough time with larger projects or do some software packaging and you'll learn that the pain is everywhere.

Galanwe 2y ago

Not sure this is still a valid critic of Python in 2024. Between pip, poetry and pyproject.toml, things are now quite good IMHO.

Arcanum-XIII 2y ago
All is well, then, one day, you have to update one library. Some days later, in some woods or cave, people will hear your screams of rage and despair.
- Galanwe 2y ago
  Been using python for 15 years now, and these screams were never heard. Dev/test with relaxed pip installs, freeze deployment dependencies with pip freeze/pip-tools/poetry/whateveryoulike, and what's the problem?
  - neeleshs 2y ago
    same here. Been using python/pip for 10+ years and this was never a problem. In the java world, there is jar hell, but it was never a crippling issue, but a minor annoyance once a year or so. In general, is dependency management such a massive problem it is made to be on HN? Maybe people here are doing far more complex/different things than I've done in the past 20 years
  - mixmastamyk 2y ago
    Guessing that folks who write such things are lacking sysad skills like manipulating paths, etc. It does take Python expertise to fix other issues on occasion but they are fixable. Why I think flags like ‘pip —break-system-packages’ are silly. It’s an optimization for non-users over experienced ones.
arp242 2y ago
I guess that depends from your perspective. I'm not a Python developer, but like many people I do want to run Python programs from time to time. I don't really know Rust, or Cargo, but I never have trouble building any Rust program: "cargo build [--release]" is all I need to know. Easy. Even many C programs are actually quite easy: "./configure", "make", and optionally "make install". "./configure" has a nice "--help". There is a lot to be said about the ugly generated autotools soup, but the UX for people just wanting to build/run it without in-depth knowledge of the system is actually quite decent. cmake is a regression here. With Python, "pip install" gives me an entire screen full of errors about venv and "externally managed" and whatnot. I don't care. I just want to run it. I don't want a bunch of venvs, I just want to install or run the damn program. I've taken to just use "pip install --break-system-packages", which installs to ~/.local. It works shrug. Last time I wanted to just run a project with a few small modifications I had a hard time. I ended up just editing ~/.local/lib/python/[...] Again, it worked so whatever. All of this is really where Python and some other languages/build systems fail. Many people running this are not $language_x programmers or experts, and I don't want to read up on every system I come across. That's not a reasonable demand. Any system that doesn't allow non-users of that language to use it in simple easy steps needs work. Python's system is one such system.

est 2y ago

Deps in CPython are more about .so/.dll problem, not much can be done since stuff happens outside python itself.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

Python's dependency management sucks because they're audacious enough to attempt packaging non-python dependencies. People always bring Maven up as a system that got it right, but Maven only does JVM things. I think the real solution here is to just only use python dependency management for python things and to use something like nix for everything else.

adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
Julia's package manager (for one) works great and can manage non Julia packages. the problem with python's system is that rejecting semver makes writing a package manager basically impossible since there is no way to automatically resolve packages.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  Could you clarify what you mean? pip and every other Python package installer is absolutely doing automatic package resolution, and the standard (PEP 440) dependency operators include a compatible version operator (~=) that's predicated on SemVer-style version behavior.
pletnes 2y ago
This is what we used to have and it was much worse. Source: lived that life 10-15 y ago.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  15y ago I was using apt-get to manage my c++ dependencies with no way of keeping track of which dependency went with which project. It was indeed pretty awful. Now when I cd into a project, direnv + nix notices the dependencies that that project needs and makes them available, whatever their language. When I cd into a different project, I get an entirely different set of dependencies. There's pretty much nothing installed with system scope. Just a shell and an editor. Both of these are language agnostic, but the level of encapsulation is quite different and one is much better than that other. (There are still plenty of problems, but they can be fixed with a commit instead of a change of habit.) The idea that every language needs a different package manager and that each of those needs to package everything that might my useful when called from that language whether or not it is written in that language... It just doesn't scale.

galdosdi 2y ago

The shitshow that is python tooling is one of the reasons I prefer java jobs to python jobs when I can help it. Java got this pretty right years and years and years earlier. Why are python and javascript continuing to horse around playing games?