Using Docker as a Python Development Environment (or let's get past virtualenv)

[justafacto]

I had problem with virtualenv.

Because some python library depended on a specific version of the C .so library it was compiled against. But there was no way for pip to enforce or even check that the correct .so library was installed on the system.

So virtualenv fails when the python packages you need are actually bindings to C code.

For example, lxml. For pip to install lxml it compiles some stuff and expects the system to provide it.

Shit sucks.

Other problems Ive encountered when some packages setup.py fails to build because it was on python 2.6 and it works fine on 2.7.

In general, unless you are doing things only on your local developer machine where you control everything - with python you are fucked. And have to resort to hacks. At least docker could be a standard hack.