I feel that after the phase of diversification and exploration, python packaging is now undergoing unification and selection.

Heck, there's even a standard for lockfiles around the corner!

I predict that next year around this time, python packaging is going to be a no-brainer.

... just in case that might help. Good luck!

When that cursed nested dependency was causing issues due to import alone, my solution was to mock those imports.

Tough spot to be in. Whenever this happened to me it was due to some dependencies having badly managed or wrong constraints on some nested dependency that wouldn't even be called in my use case.

With uv there I see docs.astral.sh/uv/reference... that looks promising.

It's centric around venvs. That said, they are on it, there's a --preview option already that I haven't tried.

I just added the venv to the PATH when I needed this in a docker image without changing the full repo to embrace the uv way of things :)

Separately whenever bird noises come up I have the urge to share this absurd finding (from a totally under-the-radar PNAS paper that is so cool that I gave it its own box in this review)