pixi VS pkgx

re: C/C++ development: anybody using conda/pixi for dependency management? Here's an example of compiling a C++ SDL program using pixi and the SDL dependency from conda-forge [1].

Seems viable as a replacement for things like vckpg [2] which only builds from source.

I'm still researching this but it seems like rattler [3] is the tool to use to build/publish packages. The supported repos are: prefix.dev's own hosting, anaconda.org, artifactory or a self-hosted server.

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1: https://github.com/prefix-dev/pixi/blob/main/examples/cpp-sd...

2: https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg

3: https://prefix-dev.github.io/rattler-build/latest/authentica...

I recently started using https://github.com/prefix-dev/pixi for Python projects. I really love it so far, but this tool looks a bit more mature, which makes sense considering pixi is relatively new.

Have you tried https://pixi.sh/ ? It brings Cargo/NPM/Poetry like commands and lock files to the Conda ecosystem, and now can manage and lock PyPI dependencies alongside by using uv under the hood.

I haven't been using anything CUDA, but the scientific geospatial stack is often a similar mess to install, and it's been handling it really well.

Isn't this basically what pixi wants to be? Wouldn't it be better to work together?

https://github.com/prefix-dev/pixi/

I’m liking pkgx over asdf as it can activate project tooling upon cd’ing into a project folder.

https://pkgx.sh

I saw some alternatives being suggested and wanted to do the same (Also, so that I can look back at this item, through my comments :) ). Started using https://pkgx.sh/ lately. I know it has some baggage with tea.xyz and crypto, but it is also easy to get started with.

Secondly, our development environments must not drift, because then code may behave differently and a change could pass on our machine but fail in production. There are many tools for locking down environments, e.g nix, pkgx, asdf, containers, etc., and they all share the common goal of being able to lock down dependencies for an environment accurately and deterministically. And that needs to be enforced in our local workflow so we don't have to rely on CI environments for correctness. All developers must have environments that are effectively identical to what runs in CI (which itself should be representative of the production environment).

There are many ways this can be done (e.g nix, pkgx, asdf, containers, etc.), and we won’t get into which specific tools to use, because we'll instead cover the essential essence of preventing environment drift:

1. pkgx

Before diving in, it's a good idea to have a package manager handy, like tea. It'll handle your development environment and simplify your life!

Direct fast-track link to repo

checkout https://github.com/teaxyz/cli and https://github.com/teaxyz/pantry

Install is tea: sh <(curl https://tea.xyz) and