Python Dependency Management

Python package management has long been a struggle. In January 2017, the PipEnv project was started, and by 2018 it became the officially recommended package manager.

It brought a fantastic npm-like experience to Python, with easy configuration via a YAML Pipfile and a straightforward CLI. But then it went dead, not seeing any releases between November 2018 and April 2020. People moved on to Poetry, and I ended up using Conda quite a bit, especially when numpy/scipy was required.

While it does look like PipEnv has seen regular releases since April 2020, I’m seeing more people just use the built in pip+virtualenv tools. Here is how to do that…

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From the Python docs.

Create and activate a virtual environment

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Install dependencies

python3 -m pip install --upgrade requests
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 -m pip freeze

Deactivate environment

deactivate