[Python-Dev] Distutils and Distribute roadmap (and some words on Virtualenv, Pip) (original) (raw)

Daniel Fetchinson fetchinson at googlemail.com
Mon Oct 12 14:52:12 CEST 2009

My opinion is that this tool exists only because Python doesn't support the installation of multiple versions for the same distributions. This is not at all how I use virtualenv. For me virtualenv is a sandbox so that I don't have to become root whenever I need to install a Python package for testing purposes and to allow me to hop between sets of installed Python packages while developing on multiple Python projects. I also use it as a sandbox for build bots so that multiple bots on the same machine can each build their own projects with just the known dependencies installed.

+1

I also don't use virtualenv for supporting multiple versions, but rather for sandboxing, testing and experimentation. To make sure that an app works with the exact dependencies I think it should work with. Also, it's important that the 'global' site-packages typically requires root privileges while installing to a virtualenv doesn't.

Cheers, Daniel

-- Psss, psss, put it down! - http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list