virtualenv VS HomeBrew

For more information visit: virtualenv documentation.

Python's venv module is officially recommended for creating virtual environments since Python 3.5 comes packaged with your Python installation. While there still are additional older tools available, such as conda and virtualenv, if you are new to virtual environments, it is best to use venv now.

Despite these attractive attributes, many developers I've come across don't prefer Fish shell, primarily due to integration gaps with tools like Python's virtualenv. So, in this article, I'm offering a simple solution for automatic virtualenv activation for Fish shell, steering clear of resource-intensive frameworks like oh-my-fish that often slow down the shell.

`virtualenv` still exists and is still actively developed. It's true that Python 3 ships with `venv` but I think `virtualenv` offers some additional features.

https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv

virtualenv is a tool that creates an isolated Python environment for each of your projects.

Python is the chosen language for this tutorial and as you can guess some precautions should be done to make sure that the environment is setup correctly and the main OS I'll use is Ubuntu(a Linux distro) virtual environment is a tool that helps you to isolate your code from the rest of the system. It is a good idea to create a virtual environment for your project.

$ curl -O https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/raw/master/virtualenv.py$ python virtualenv.py my_new_env$ . my_new_env/bin/activate(my_new_env)$ pip install ... Or something entirely different?

I've been using Fish for years and spend my entire day working with Python. Python's virtualenv has an `activate.fish` command, I've never had any problems with it. Additionally, we have a ton of internal tooling built in a fabfile, so I've written a couple of snippets of fish that automatically activate that .venv (Poetry managed) whenever I cd into a directory that has one, and also expands a bunch of env vars into the shell session. I've also got this feature request in on the virtualenv repo in the hope that one day we can have activate.fish emit an event - https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/1456

We of cause, like all good developers do, put the error message online and look for clues, we quickly found a GitHub issue and boi, we are not the only souls that got crushed by a "timely" release of virtualenv just a few hours before us. Since the lastest version of virtualenv got installed every time we create the CI build job on Travis, it fails even we have done nothing. Of cause we didn't point fingers at other maintainers, they are just as hardworking as us and it's human to make mistakes. We are faced with 2 options, roll back to the previous release or wait for the patch of virtualenv to get released. As the devs of virtualenv did a lighting fast patch, we have chosen option 2.

Homebrew is a highly popular package manager on macOS and Linux systems, enabling users to easily install, update, and uninstall command-line tools and applications. Its design philosophy focuses on simplifying the software installation process on macOS, eliminating the need for manual downloads and compilations of software packages.

Homebrew - package manager for linux-based OSs.

Package Manager: Homebrew

Hopping from one distro to another with a different package manager might require some time to adapt. Using a package manager that can be installed on most distro is one way to help you get to work faster. Flatpak is one of them; other alternative are Snap, Nix or Homebrew. Flatpak is a good starter, and if you have a bunch of free time, I suggest trying Nix.

Are you using SQLite that ships with macOS, or SQLite installed from homebrew?

I had a different problem in the past with the SQLite that ships with macOS, and have been using SQLite from homebrew since.

So if it’s the one that comes with macOS that gives you this problem that you are having, try using SQLite from homebrew instead.

https://brew.sh/

Before we begin, make sure you have Homebrew installed on your Mac. Homebrew is a package manager that makes it easy to install software and dependencies. You can install Homebrew by following the instructions on their website: https://brew.sh/

I’m on MacOS and erlang.org, elixir-lang.org, and postgresql.org all suggest installation via Homebrew, which is a very popular package manager for MacOS.

I have always either installed Node from the installer provided by the Nodejs website or, via Brew in macOS. I have also used nvm in the past but did not know that there was a best practice to guide us.

A running Rails application needs a database to connect to. You may already have your database of choice installed, but if not, I recommend PostgreSQL, or Postgres for short. On a Mac, probably the easiest way to install it is with Posrgres.app. Another option, the one I prefer, is to use Homebrew. With Homebrew installed, this command will install PostgreSQL version 16 along with libpq:

On a macOS machine, you can use homebrew by running the command.