Ask HN: How do you handle/maintain local Python environments?

103 points

7 years ago

I'm having some trouble figuring out how to handle my local Python. I'm not asking about 2 vs 3 - that ship has sailed - I'm confused on which binary to be using. From the way I see it, there's at least 4 different Pythons I could be using:

1 - Python shipped with OS X/Ubuntu

2 - brew/apt install python

3 - Anaconda

4 - Getting Python from https://www.python.org/downloads/

And that's before getting into how you get numpy et al installed. What's the general consensus on which to use? It seems like the OS X default is compiled with Clang while brew's version is with GCC. I've been working through this book [1] and found this thread [2]. I really want to make sure I'm using fast/optimized linear algebra libraries, is there an easy way to make sure? I use Python for learning data science/bioinformatics, learning MicroPython for embedded, and general automation stuff - is it possible to have one environment that performs well for all of these?

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Python-Data-Analysis-Wrangling-IPython/dp/1449319793

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/46r8u0/numpylinalgsolve_is_6x_faster_on_my_mac_than_on/

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