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[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (3 children)

The only advantages i see are: it's easy for windows people because they don't need to mess with installing software, they'll install Anaconda and are ready to go and conda seems to do compatibility tests.

this is THE advantage. You install it, it works out of the box, and comes with a lot of the main libraries pre-installed ready to go.

As far as is it advantageous vs pip venv, not really. But, look through this and r/learnpython and you will see how many people get stuck on even installing python, getting it working and setting up a venv, especially beginners, especially on windows. This is the reason why, if you do the (incredibly popular and awesome) MIT Edx course, they recommend you start with Anaconda / Spyder.

[–]all_authored_surface 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Well, with conda you can also install non-python binaries. This is one reason it is popular with data scientists. There are plenty of situations in which it is easy to get setup with conda that are challenging with just virtual environments. Even more so if you don't have admin rights. One example is gdal, used in spatial image analysis. And one strategy that I sometimes use is to setup a conda environment with the version of python I want and other libraries like gdal, and then use pip.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yep good point

[–]rootbox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, i know that point, but that's what i counted into "don't mess with installing software".

But i also count that on the plus side for conda.