[Distutils] Dynamic linking between Python modules (was: Beyond wheels 1.0: helping downstream, FHS and more)

[Paul Moore]

On 19 May 2015 at 00:41, Chris Barker <chris.barker at noaa.gov> wrote:
>> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 3:17 AM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Agreed. My personal use case is as a general programmer (mostly
>>> sysadmin and automation type of work) with some strong interest in
>>> business data analysis and a side interest in stats.
>>>
>>> For that sort of scenario, some of the scipy stack (specifically
>>> matplotlib and pandas and their dependencies) is really useful. But
>>> conda is *not* what I'd use for day to day work, so being able to
>>> install via pip is important to me.
>
>
> What if "conda install" did work for virtually all pypi packages? (one way
> or the other) -- would you use and recommend Anaconda (or miniconda) then?

If conda did everything pip did (and that includes consuming wheels
from PyPI, not just sdists, and it includes caching of downloads,
autobuilding of wheels etc, etc.) then I'd certainly consider how to
switch to conda (*not* Anaconda - I'd use a different package manager,
but not a different Python distribution) rather than pip.

But "considering switching" would include getting PyPI supporting
conda packages, getting ensurepip replaced with ensureconda, etc. A
total replacement for pip, in other words.

As a pip maintainer I'm obviously biased, but if conda is intending to
replace pip as the official packaging solution for Python, then it
needs to do so completely. If it doesn't do that, then we (PyPA and
the Python core developers) need to be able to credibly say that pip
is the official solution, and that means that we need to make sure
that pip/wheel provides the best user experience possible. That
includes persuading parts of the Python community (e.g. Scientific
users) not to abandon the standard solution in favour of a custom one.

My fear here is a split in the Python community, with some packages
only being available via one ecosystem, and some via another. Most
people won't mind, but people with cross-discipline interests will end
up disadvantaged in such a situation.

Paul