Re: PEP 668 -- Graceful cooperation between external and Python package managers

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hello,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> On Tue, Sep 07, 2021 at 04:39:28PM +0200, Maxime Devos wrote:
>> See <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0668/>.
>> I haven't looked closely into this myself.
>> It might be relevant to Guix.
>> 
>> For LWN subscribers, there is an article about the PEP:
>> <https://lwn.net/Articles/867657/>.
>
> Here is a link for everyone to read:
>
> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/867657/c4e77bb70e27c910/

Guix already makes life easier with dealing with Python environments
(especially with GUIX_PYTHONPATH on core-updates), but it's nice to know
this problem is getting addressed.

IIUC, PEP 668 is about *warning* a pip user when installing a package
would shadow a system one; it does so by reading a EXTERNALLY-MANAGED
file in the Python library site-packages directory.

So simply put, all we have to do to enable this future warning in pip is
to install an EXTERNALLY-MANAGED file as a phase in our
python-build-system.

Thanks for the link!

Maxim