anytime I have to maintain python I do it inside a container. Why? because anytime you deal with pieces of shit directly, you wear your PPE.

everything you said, 10,000% agree. god forbid the Python purists hear it though, they'll tell you that you're just too stupid to understand the language enough to use it and will compare it with literally every language just to prove that they have the "biggest" python.

Perhaps consider Poetry

It's my personal go-to package manager and venv solution.

I have been using Python as my second language alongside whatever system language I was using professionally as well as for a variety of personal projects for about 20 years. I’m quite fond of the language for the sorts of things I use it for, which is either scripting glue or doing serious math because I hate dealing with Matlab licenses.

And you are so fucking correct it isn’t even funny. Not only is the tooling a disaster, but it seems like every few years there is a new tooling scheme that doesn’t work quite right with the old one and is a disaster in its own unique way. And

I know people get annoyed by rust evangelists, but I started using it six months ago and god damn does cargo slap. Want to initiate new project? One command gives you the complete boilerplate. Adding a new dep? One simple command. Want to pin or unpin a version? One simple command. Want to update all the deps to latest? One simple command. Want make a release package? One simple command. Want to update all your installed packages? One simple command. Want to keep every project tied to a different version? You guessed it.

I definitely have some issues with Rust syntax, but I want cargo to manage my life.

Really, the a Python project needs to take a look at the Zen of Python and apply it to the tooling. And then use cargo to do it.

Edit: And, all of those simple commands work across all platforms the same. None of this, “Everything is perfectly cross platform and is the same anywhere. Unless you’re using a Mac. Or Windows. Or the wrong Linux distro.”

Edit x2: There is, of course, an XKCD for that.

Edit x3: And it’s not just venv. I am constantly struggling with which pip to use on which machine. Is it pip, pip3, pipx, uv pip, conda pip?

pip is the most unreliable package manager I’ve seen,

But have you tried conda? (It's so much worse)

They have changed this but only very recently with the Python Install Manager which forces programmers to develop the way they should have been with venv. Like Sept 2025 recently even though it's been a valid language since 1991..

Check out uv

I wish AI came earlier, using python in the age of AI just sucks so much. Only reason to still use it is the libraries

Pyenv and venv are independent and don't do any ‘same thing’, so you must be really talented to mess them up or be confused by them.

I also don't know what's difficult about understanding why the system-wide installation exists or how to add local modules to the path (which venv does for you anyway).