
Saving, Sharing, and Re-Creating Saved Environments.Creating Environments and Installing Packages.Installing Python Packages: Conda and Pip.This post will share the way I prefer now and why. Flushed with the pride of thinking one has ceased to do it wrong, I wrote about How to Install Python Packages the Right Way.Īs any cat skinner will tell you, however, there’s more than one right way to do it. Now a veteran of many requirements.txt files, I have system aliases that help me quickly create and activate virtual environments. Later, and for years since, I’ve used the Python venv module. In Java, one used Maven (at least for a time before Gradle and other Ivy-based tools muddied the waters). In contrast, as an experienced Java developer, I would have been horrified to download jar files (Java packages) and drop them into the system-wide Java lib directory. In all fairness to them, that’s what I did first when I started using Python, too, even though, at the time, I already had over a decade of software development experience. More than one person has told me that they don’t use virtual environments they just install packages using pip into their global Python environment. Let me give you another symptom of Python’s tooling. In response, someone had some good-natured fun at my expense because I wrote that because SymPy is “written entirely in Python, it’s easy to install and use.” Advertisements For example, I recently promoted my SymPy post in such a place.


If you spend time on Python forums, you’ll find that even people who love Python think its package management tools are somewhat clunky compared to other languages.
