[Zope3-dev] Re: System python for *development*? (Was: 3.3.0 tag broken by zc.catalog eggs?)

[Gary Poster]

On May 21, 2007, at 9:20 AM, Philipp von Weitershausen wrote:

> Martijn Pieters wrote:
>> On 5/21/07, Gary Poster <gary at zope.com> wrote:
>>> FWIW, I know zc.catalog but I'm certainly not an egg expert.  But
>>> this message looks like you are maybe sharing a Python for various
>>> installations.  Are you maybe using your system Python?  Generally
>>> not advised for development work...try a standalone one?
>> Come again? Using the system python when developing has always been
>> fine; the recommendation has only applied to deployment situations in
>> the past. The point is that using a manual, dedicated build for a
>> deployment gives you full control over tweaking that build for best
>> performance without interfering with other users of the  
>> interpreter on
>> the same system.
>> I run dozens of development instances on my laptop, all with the same
>> Macports python 2.4 installation. Creating a separate python build  
>> for
>> each of these would be impractical, to say the least.
>> However, it appears that the switch to eggs requires additional
>> precautions to avoid your python system to be 'polluted' with various
>> Zope3 packages. Perhaps we should recommend using workingenv for
>> development work instead?
>
> workingenv, v-python or buildout are certainly recommended when  
> doing egg-based development. Some go as far as building their own  
> Python (in which case they're probably ok with installing stuff  
> into that Python's site-packages), but unless I'm doing deployment,  
> I'm not one of them.

Right.  If you are using workingenv or buildout (I'm unfamiliar with  
v-python) for everything then system Python might be ok.  I don't use  
system Python for the same kind of reason that I stopped using Zope  
2's reload years ago--I've seen people get burned with annoying "I  
just wasted time trying to debug and if I had just used a standalone  
Python I would have been fine."

I'm actually in-between, anyway.  I have a system Python and a dev  
Python; I don't generally install anything in the dev Python, while I  
do sometimes install things in the system Python (e.g., easy_install)  
and it actually sometimes begins with more installed than a normal  
Python (for instance, when I'm on a Mac, which is often).  I then  
feel comfortable sharing the dev Python across builds because I know  
it is clean.

Gary