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Re: Re: Challenges packaging Python for a Linux distro - at Python Language Summit

From Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org>
Newsgroups linux.debian.maint.python
Subject Re: Re: Challenges packaging Python for a Linux distro - at Python Language Summit
Date 2021-05-17 14:30 +0200
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On 2021-05-17 07:10:39 +0100 (+0100), Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> (apologies i forgot to say, please do cc me
[...]

Done.

> a dist-upgrade to debian / testing - a way to obtain the latest
> variants of critical software - frequently resulted in massive
> breakage.
> 
> i quickly learned never to attempt that again given the massive
> disruption it caused to me being able to earn money as a software
> engineer.
[...]

You're probably just going to see this as further confirmation of
your opinion, or yet another person telling you that you're doing it
wrong, but as someone who also writes rather a lot of Python
programs for a living I learned long ago to not develop against the
"system" on any platform. I use sid/unstable for my development
systems, but I consider the python3 package in it to have two uses:
Testing new packages of software which are targeting a future Debian
stable release, and running other packaged things which are already
part of Debian.

For software development work, I compile my own Python interpreters
and libraries, because I need to develop against a variety of
different versions of these, sometimes in chroots, to be able to
target other distros and releases thereof. I keep all these in my
homedir or otherwise outside of normal system-wide installation
paths. Bear in mind that this isn't just a Debian problem, for
decades Red Hat has also advised programmers not to rely on their
/usr/bin/python for custom development because it is patched and
tuned specifically for running system applications packaged for
their distro and not intended as a general-purpose Python
distribution.
-- 
Jeremy Stanley

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Thread

Re: Re: Challenges packaging Python for a Linux distro - at Python  Language Summit Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl@lkcl.net> - 2021-05-17 08:50 +0200
  Re: Re: Challenges packaging Python for a Linux distro - at Python  Language Summit Jeremy Stanley <fungi@yuggoth.org> - 2021-05-17 14:30 +0200
    Re: Re: Challenges packaging Python for a Linux distro - at Python  Language Summit Brian May <bam@debian.org> - 2021-05-18 00:00 +0200
  Re: Challenges packaging Python for a Linux distro - at Python  Language Summit Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2021-05-17 16:20 +0200

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