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Comment by coleifer | Hacker News Reader

I see a lot of comments about "hey it's open-source, just fork". The reason people feel upset is because this project was shilled hard when it was released. The python packaging team was officially recommending it, stuff like that. There was some backlash because of legitimate usability concerns with the software, and what was perceived as the tacit blessing of a project solely due to the maintainer's having written another popular project.

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> the maintainer's having written another popular project.

Potentially relevant: https://vorpus.org/blog/why-im-not-collaborating-with-kennet...

Holy crap. I had never heard of anything like that regarding him

Wow I didn't know it became that bad. He came across as an egostic person but I didn't know he's more than that...

That's the real issue here: prominent, established projects recommending other projects that are not remotely as well-established as the big projects, whereas such a recommendation may suggest that it is.

Big, high exposure projects should probably wait to recommend interesting new projects for actual use until they are sure that the management of that project is in reliable hands with enough backup to continue it if the original creator vanishes.

I think that's the default for most high exposure projects. Unless, of course, both projects have the same author, and that author's primary concern is increasing their own exposure.

The cult of personality that is being nurtured around certain members of the Python community definitely harms the Python ecosystem, because solutions with glaring flaws get a pass when they are stamped with someone's name, and the mismanagement of projects is rarely addressed.

Then there's also the issue of such members of the community exploiting the human tendency to worship others.

Do you think this is unique to the Python community? Any thoughts as to why it might be so?

You said the "project was shilled hard when it was first released". Why use a word with such strong conspiratorial connotations? Couldn't you just as easily argue that a lot attention was given to the project without implying that it was because of a shill conspiracy?

What concrete evidence leads you to the conclusion that coordinated shills are responsible for giving the project attention?

> The python packaging team was officially recommending it

NO! This is a common misconception[1].

Edit: Correction it's not endorsed by the core Python team but it's recommended by the Python Packaging Authority in various places. See replies below for more info.

[1] https://chriswarrick.com/blog/2018/07/17/pipenv-promises-a-l...

Look, if you can’t trust the endorsement of the organization that otherwise develops and maintains all of Python’s official packaging tools, who are you supposed to trust? Guido and only Guido?

> The thing that made it “official” was a short tutorial [1] on packaging.python.org, which is the PyPA’s packaging user guide. Also of note is the Python.org domain used. It makes it sound as if Pipenv was endorsed by the Python core team. PyPA (Python Packaging Authority) is a separate organization — they are responsible for the packaging parts (including pypi.org, setuptools, pip, wheel, virtualenv, etc.) of Python

True. This same tutorial cites pip-tools, hatch, poetry. Does that mean that they “endorse” these tools as well?

However, over here [0] I see pipenv, but not those:

> Use Pipenv to manage library dependencies when developing Python applications. See Managing Application Dependencies for more details on using pipenv.

> Consider other tools such as pip when pipenv does not meet your use case.

That recommendation is absolutely unambiguous.

[0] https://packaging.python.org/guides/tool-recommendations/

Right, I stand corrected.

So if it isn't supposed to be officially endorsed, should someone file an issue at https://github.com/pypa/packaging.python.org/issues?

It hasn't been removed, because PyPA disagree [0].

> It's an official project of PyPA still, it's just not being pushed as the "be-all-end-all" option.

[0] https://github.com/pypa/packaging.python.org/issues/589

> This same tutorial cites pip-tools, hatch, poetry. Does that mean that they “endorse” these tools as well?

Those tools are relegated to a small section at the end, whereas the main body of the text says "Pipenv is recommended for collaborative projects..."

I'd say that counts as a specific endorsement of Pipenv. I guess it's an endorsement by the "Python Packaging Authority" rather than "Python Core" but it's pretty hard for someone at the tutorial-reading level to perceive the difference.

It’s officially recommended on packaging.python.org [1]. If that’s not enough to count as an official endorsement, what is?

[1] https://packaging.python.org/guides/tool-recommendations/

Those pages are managed by the "PyPA" group, not technically python.org itself, although they were given a subdomain there. Start here and follow the links for more info: https://hynek.me/articles/python-app-deps-2018/

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