For Python libraries, I used to shy away from adding extra modules, just because I didn't want to install things in the system Python site-packages. Then I sta

For Python libraries, I used to shy away from adding extra modules, just because I didn't want to install things in the system Python site-packages. Then I started using virtualenv for everything, and my life has been much simpler. Now, I have a separate virtualenv setup for each project, and a simple script/Makefile to download and build dependencies. I also add a short shell script to wrap each project that automatically sets up the virtualenv environment and runs the appropriate Python script. Needless to say, I'm very happy that virtualenv itself has been added to the standard library.