zlacker

>>ingve+(OP)
A lot of the problem seems to be driven by a desire to have editable installs. I personally have never understood why having editable installs is such an important need. When I'm working on a Python package and need to test something, I just run

python -m pip install --user <package_name>

and I now have a local installation that I can use for testing.

>>pdonis+FYm
That would you require to make re-installations if your local app you develop against after every code change. Very few people will want to do that and it’s potentially very slow.

It’s also a step not needed by most other ecosystems.

>>the_mi+c1n
Go (a.k.a. Golang), with its network-first import system (i.e. import "example.org/foo/bar"), has solved the problem in a surprisingly simple way. You just add a "replace" directive in a go.mod file and you can point your import (and all child imports) to any directory on the filesystem.