python-build-standalone VS poetry2nix

It also replaces "just" as a task manager for me which is very pleasant.

The fact that the python plugin uses precompiled Python binaries by default instead of building them from source remove common issues I had with the asdf's python plugin at work with missing dependencies.

Just so you know, I encountered two little quirks that needed a fix:

- [Backspace Key Doesn't work in Python REPL](https://github.com/indygreg/python-build-standalone/blob/mai...)

These builds are an alternative: https://github.com/indygreg/python-build-standalone

Those are what Rye and hatch use.

Drawbacks: late availability of patch versions, various quirks from how they are built (missing readline, missing some build info that self-compiled C python modules might need.)

Bundling Python isn't too bad if you find the right tools for it.

I really like https://github.com/indygreg/python-build-standalone and https://github.com/indygreg/PyOxidizer

A bundled, built standalone Python can be 16 to 32MB (including the full standard library, which you can strip down to just the bits you use to save size). Not tiny, but probably not worth switching programming languages over.

I'm trying to build a "portable" Python package based on those available from https://github.com/indygreg/python-build-standalone/releases.

I'm a huge fan of https://github.com/indygreg/python-build-standalone which provides Python builds that CAN be moved around and work independently of any other Python installation.

I used that for my own Python+Electron app, which I wrote about here: https://til.simonwillison.net/electron/python-inside-electro...

I used to build my own Pythons that are the same everywhere, now I use indygreg's Python builds. Rye will automatically download and manage Python builds from there. No compiling, no divergence.

One interesting tidbit is that it completely ignores your system Python installations, and instead uses precompiled installations of Python by indygreg from PyOxidizer. This means you don't have to deal with installing Python. It just auto downloads the right builds.

wget https://github.com/indygreg/python-build-standalone/releases/download/20220630/cpython-3.10.5+20220630-x86_64_v3-unknown-linux-gnu-install_only.tar.gz -O - | tar -xz && mv python PortablePython

The lack of Ruby support instantly rings an alarm for me because CPython (on POSIX) also is not relocatable, but is listed as support. Turns pit Hermit is actually using a third-party build script[1] instead of the official one. While the python-build-standalone project is quite awesome and indeed is useful for a lot of things, it has enough quirks I would recommend against any generic package distributor to advertise as Python for general use. This in turn makes me lose most confidence on Hermit, unfortunately.

Be careful if you’re also interested in Hermit. These kinds of things bit you up way down the road when you least expect them to.

[1] https://github.com/indygreg/python-build-standalone

If you really want to be sure, you can download an install_only standalone Python build from https://github.com/indygreg/python-build-standalone/releases and install the libraries with the included pip. Then just tar it again to archive it, and use the included python to run your project. The downloaded wheel you get with pip wheel may depend on the Python version so you just save the wheels you must make sure the Python point version is exactly the same.

How about converting it to Nix derivation?

https://github.com/nix-community/poetry2nix

This looks really strange because I do not know how to solve it and also because it looks like the sha256 that I am setting is not the one that Nix will match. I read also https://github.com/nix-community/poetry2nix/issues/413 but I was not able to solve the problem.

There's a project that does this with using Nix: https://github.com/takeda/nix-cde (this is a wrapper around https://github.com/nix-community/poetry2nix)

{ description = "Application packaged using poetry2nix"; inputs.flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils"; inputs.nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable"; inputs.poetry2nix = { url = "github:nix-community/poetry2nix"; inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs"; }; outputs = { self, nixpkgs, flake-utils, poetry2nix }: flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (system: let # see https://github.com/nix-community/poetry2nix/tree/master#api for more functions and examples. inherit (poetry2nix.legacyPackages.${system}) mkPoetryEnv; pkgs = import nixpkgs {inherit system;}; python = pkgs.python310; pythonEnv = mkPoetryEnv { inherit python; projectDir = ./.; preferWheels = true; }; in { #packages.default = mkPoetryEnv { # projectDir = ./.; # python = pkgs.python310; #}; devShells.default = pkgs.mkShell { buildInputs = [pythonEnv]; packages = [ poetry2nix.packages.${system}.poetry pkgs.cairo pkgs.pkg-config pkgs.gobject-introspection pkgs.tk ]; }; }); }

A cleaner way might be to use https://github.com/nix-community/poetry2nix which can load poetry.lock inside Nix. I still need to try it for torch, but it does seem like a clean way to use it.

The README for poetry2nix (https://github.com/nix-community/poetry2nix) seems to indicate that all extras should be enabled by default.

if it's for a project you're working on, i'd recommend just using poetry2nix

poetry2nix is another popular option.