[Python-Dev] PEP 405 (built-in virtualenv) status (original) (raw)

Glenn Linderman v+python at g.nevcal.com
Mon Mar 19 18:29:12 CET 2012

On 3/19/2012 2:26 AM, Kristján Valur Jónsson wrote:

Hi Carl. I'm very interested in this work. At CCP we work heavily with virtual environments. Except that we don't use virtualenv because it is just a pain in the neck. We like to be able to run virtual python environments of various types as they arrive checked out of source control repositories, without actually "installing" anything. For some background, please see:http://blog.ccpgames.com/kristjan/2010/10/09/using-an-isolated-python-exe/. It's a rather quick read, actually.

The main issue for us is: How to prevent your local python.exe from reading environment variables and running some global site.py? There are a number of points raised in the above blog, please take a look at the "Musings" at the end. Best regards, Kristján

I found that a very interesting reverse-engineering of what needs to be done to isolate multiple pythons on a machine. I concur that this is a feature that would be good to:

  1. at least document the behavior well
  2. preferably make an extensible feature, along the lines that Kristján suggests

There are likely some bootstrapping issues, but I find the idea that the difference between an embedded Python and an installed Python and a built-but-not-installed Python being conceptually isolated to the python.exe and/or site.py rather than python.dll to be a clever concept; of course, where the code lives is less relevant than the conditions under which it is invoked; I doubt the size of the code is the issue regarding where it lives. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20120319/f417ec36/attachment.html>

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