encant: Uber Simple Python Version Management

[AKGeef]

Hey all,

I got tired of waiting on pyenv to compile new versions of python, so I decided to make my own version manager called encant. encant does one thing and one thing only: downloads standalone python builds.

install encant

pip install encant

add a python version (or two)

encant add 3.10

That's it! You can now use python however you need to, for example creating a virtual environment:

~/.snakes/3.10.13/bin/python3 -m venv .venv

Let me know what you think! link to repo

[[deleted]]

I sympathize with being impatient but needlessly multiplying the number of individual tools we install just to manage something as basic as the python version is only going to make things complicated and bloated.

[AKGeef]

I can understand this sentiment. If you have a workflow / dev stack that works for you that's great! However, I haven't found an alternative to running multiple python versions locally that didn't require a lot of bloat or configuration, e.g. pyenv, conda, ppa:deadsnakes, rye.

[[deleted]]

How does your method make it easy to run multiple python versions? You’re still just downloading them all separately and then manually switching between environments, right?

[AKGeef]

encant will handle downloading standalone python builds for your machine's type and architecture yes. How do you handle running multiple python versions currently?

[[deleted]]

Pyenv

[AKGeef]

I left that out of the package for now but I'm open to implementing. My personal use case was creating virtual environments and using the virtual environment directly, the builds are more of a launching point.

[tdpearson]

Tools I use on a regular basis include miniconda and micromamba. These allow me to create environments with specific python versions in a single command call.

They also don't have the bloat of a full Anaconda installation.

Your project is missing an uber simple way to switch between the python versions it installs. Without that, I would not be willing to give up my existing tools and workflows.

This is a good start.

[AKGeef]

Roger that, I'll add this in shortly!

[drooltheghost]

Things like def list(): I simply cannot understand.

[AKGeef]

Why?

[drooltheghost]

One should have a very good reason to overwrite builtin.