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On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 9:26 AM, Ravi <lists_ravi@lavabit.com> wrote:
On Wednesday 30 December 2009 06:15:45 René Dudfield wrote:
I agree with many things in that post. Except your conclusion on multiple versions of packages in isolation. Package isolation is like processes, and package sharing is like threads - and threads are evil!
I don't think this is an appropriate analogy, and hyperbolic statements like "threads are evil!" are unlikely to persuade a scientific audience.
You have stated this several times, but is there any evidence that this is the desire of the majority of users? In the scientific community, interactive experimentation is critical and users are typically not seasoned systems administrators. For such users, almost all packages installed after installing python itself are packages they use. In particular, all I want to do is to use apt/yum to get the packages (or ask my sysadmin, who rightfully has no interest in learning the intricacies of python package installation, to do so) and continue with my work. "Packages-in-isolation" is for people whose job is to run server farms, not interactive experimenters.
I agree.
Leave my python site-packages directory alone I say... especially don't let setuptools infect it :)
There are already mechanisms in place for this. "python setup.py install --user" or "easy_install --prefix=/usr/local" for example. Darren