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On Mar 23, 2012 3:53 PM, "Carl Meyer" <carl@oddbird.net> wrote:
>
> Hi PJ,
>
> On 03/23/2012 12:35 PM, PJ Eby wrote:
> > AFAICT, virtualenvs are overkill for most development anyway. �If you're
> > not using distutils except to install dependencies, then configure
> > distutils to install scripts and libraries to the same directory, and
> > then do all your development in that directory. �Presto! �You now have a
> > cross-platform "virtualenv". �Want the scripts on your path? �Add that
> > directory to your path... or if on Windows, don't bother, since the
> > current directory is usually on the path. � (In fact, if you're only
> > using easy\_install to install your dependencies, you don't even need to
> > edit the distutils configuration, just use "-md targetdir".)
>
> Creating and using a virtualenv is, in practice, \_easier\_ than any of
> those alternatives,

Really?� As I said, I've never seen the need to try, since just installing stuff to a directory on PYTHONPATH seems quite easy enough for me.

> that the "isolation from system site-packages" feature is quite popular
> (the outpouring of gratitude when virtualenv went isolated-by-default a
> few months ago was astonishing), and AFAIK none of your alternative
> proposals support that at all.

What is this isolation for, exactly?� If you don't want site-packages on your path, why not use python -S?

(Sure, nobody knows about these things, but surely that's a documentation problem, not a tooling problem.)

Don't get me wrong, I don't have any deep objection to virtualenvs, I've just never seen the \*point\* (outside of the scenarios I mentioned), and thus don't see what great advantage will be had by rearranging layouts to make them shareable across platforms, when "throw stuff in a directory" seems perfectly serviceable for that use case already.� Tools that \*don't\* support "just throw it in a directory" as a deployment option are IMO unpythonic -- practicality beats purity, after all.� ;-)