Anaconda 5.0 Released

https://www.anaconda.com/blog/developer-blog/announcing-the-release-of-anaconda-distribution-5-0/

by kawera • 9 years ago

137 64 9 years ago

anaconda.com

Redoubts• 9 years ago

https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/release-notes

skierscott• 9 years ago

This adds support for new compilers.

This makes Dask (pure Python paralleization) run 20% faster https://twitter.com/mrocklin/status/923581208482721794 according to Matthew Rocklin, the main developer

kalefranz4• 9 years ago

Easy availability of gcc 7.2 on CentOS 6 is kind of a big deal.

RayDonnelly7• 9 years ago

As is (actually working, usable) clang 4.0.1 on macOS 10.9

tavert3• 9 years ago

Not that big. A few minutes of following the instructions and you can build it in a docker container, post it as a tarball that anyone can use without needing the rest of miniconda to install.

sorenjan• 9 years ago

Spaces are no longer allowed in the installation path on Windows.

Seems like a weird regression 16 years after Windows XP shipped with "My Documents".

I used Anaconda for a while, but I've since moved back to CPython. Most packages install fine on Windows using pip now, and the ones that don't is just a download away from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/. Using the standard Python distribution is also nicer because of the python launcher, and it makes .py files executable like .exe and .bat.

pletnes3• 9 years ago

Some packages you install might break if you have spaces in their path. Better to fail loud, fail early. I don’t think it’s «anaconda’s fault».

kalefranz4• 9 years ago

Spaces were only temporarily disabled; added back already in 5.0.1. It’s already been released.

Lots of software breaks with spaces though, and isn’t practical to patch at the distribution level. If you’re unfortunate enough to be using spaces, file issues with the upstream when things break and let them know.

rusk3• 9 years ago

Seems like a weird regression 16 years after Windows XP shipped with "My Documents".

Interesting though, that 6 years ago they reverted back to simply "Documents".

In modern windows, essential user paths no longer need have spaces in them. The persistence of "Program Files" and the hilariously tricky "Program Files (x86)" are notable however.

timthelion2• 9 years ago

What is wrong with spaces in file names? When my wife was doing research for her thesis she had all the papers she was citing named with the full title of the paper. Linux handled it fine, and it seemed utterly modern and natural to me.

monkmartinez• 9 years ago

I love Anaconda. To me it is the most obvious way to do Python. If you don't know what is going on with your env exactly, just go to your Anaconda folder and investigate. I have done some pretty funky stuff just messing around and have never had problem. Great work!

simonw• 9 years ago

If I'm fluent with virtualenv and already use it for all of my Mac OS X Python development, is there a reason I should still consider trying Anaconda?

pletnes3• 9 years ago

It ships with intel MKL optimizations for e.g numpy/sciy. That’s a lot of hassle to get working in a virtualenv, not to mention maintaining several!

MKL is also multicore parallelized out of the box.

stadeschuldt• 9 years ago

Isn't that working on the Mac ootb as well? If I install numpy it links it against https://developer.apple.com/documentation/accelerate which is very close to MKL/OpenBLAS performance.

nnq4• 9 years ago

Yeah, it allows working with multiple Python versions fine, like not just 2 vs 3 like on modern Linuxes, but also having one virtualnenv use 2.4, another 2.7, another 3.6 etc.

Couple this with good support for Windows too, and it's basically the only usable cross platform Python version manager... kind of sad all this functionality is not baked into core CPython's package, it would make language adoption 10x easier since "multiple python madness" is what trips newbies, especially if they use Windows or a Linux they don't administer themselves...

Also nicely optimized precompiled stuff, again, for the benefit of new Windows users, for which anything that needs compiling anything has a 50% change of breaking.

mwj• 9 years ago

If you use data science libraries like numpy, pandas etc then these rely on OS level packages like libgfortran and liblapack. Anaconda is a way to guarantee you are running a known stack from dev machine through to production. This is the key benefit IMO (as well as getting improving deploy times)

kmike84• 9 years ago

All these packages provide wheels on OS X, there is no need to install gfortran these days.

A good point about a known stack.

ylem• 9 years ago

I don't know if you use some of Enthought's tools like MayaVi and such, but those used to be a pain to install under MacOs. I haven't tried lately though without Anaconda (it's just incredibly convenient).

deepsun• 9 years ago

Last time I checked it didn't work with virtualenv. Does it now?

kalefranz4• 9 years ago

Yes. conda install -c conda-forge virtualenv

That version is patched to fix previous incompatibilities.

AlexeyBrin• 9 years ago

Anaconda has his own mechanism to create a virtual environment. You use the conda command to create a new virtual environment: https://conda.io/docs/user-guide/tasks/manage-environments.h...

kalefranz4• 9 years ago

Right. If you’re stuck on python virtualenv, you can use it if you want. Conda environments are more general. Light-weight environments for any language or runtime or aggregation of packages, not just python.

nnq4• 9 years ago

It's own environments mechanisms is even better: each environment can have it's own separate python version!

The "miniconda" installer variant is something I even use in production when on the same server I need to run microservices one written fro Python 2.4, another for Pythn 2.7+, another for Python 3.3, another for Python 3.6+ etc.

Really, anyone doing Python should embrace conda envs - they are awesome and allow skipping the entire "Python 2 or 3" useless discussion and replacing it with "just use whatever python you want", just specify it clearly... The whole "2 vs 3" incident would never even have existed if people people would've had something like Node's NVM or Ruby's RVM, and "conda envs" it's basically this, only that it combines support for its own special package formats with this.

captainmuon• 9 years ago

You can do that with virtualenvs, too. `mkvirtualenv -p python3.6` for example. When you activate that virtualenv, it uses that interpreter version.

afarrell3• 9 years ago

You can also install your own separate nodejs version in each environment. Or your own separate ruby version.

danso• 9 years ago

The whole "2 vs 3" incident would never even have existed if people people would've had something like Node's NVM or Ruby's RVM, and "conda envs" it's basically this, only that it combines support for its own special package formats with this.

What is this "2 vs 3" incident and how would a better version manager solved the problem of Py2 packages not migrating to 3?

makmanalp• 9 years ago

Very excited for this. My go-to is still regular old pip and virtualenv, but I love anaconda for /not/ having to compile MKL / BLAS on my own in every new environment I use.

Also check out the JupyterLab alpha which comes with this, which is very neat:

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/PyData/Seattle2017/BRK11 (demo starts around 15:00)

jatin2302• 9 years ago

Ooh. I really thought a new anaconda movie is coming.!!!

milliams2• 9 years ago

I do like Anaconda and it's a really great way to easily get Python on the computers of the people I teach. However, I do have some problems with how they mess about with the Python ecosystem. If you read a tutorial on Python modules, it will tell you to `pip install`, create a venv etc.

Anaconda have removed the ensurepip module (part of the standard library since 3.4) which is used during the venv creation to install pip. PEP 453 explicitly recommends that "Even if pip is made available globally by other means, do not remove the ensurepip module in Python 3.4 or later." to ensure that the `venv` module works as expected.

The lack of an `ensurepip` module means that trying to create a venv with `python3 -m venv my_test_venv` gives an error of:

  Error: Command '['/home/milliams/my_test_venv/bin/python3', '-Im', 'ensurepip', '--upgrade', '--default-pip']' returned non-zero exit status 1.

People say that this is ok since `conda` is better but I don't want to have to teach my students the standard tools for Python module development only to have to say "except if you're using Anaconda...". Especially since the really shouldn't have to know what distribution they are using. It should be an implementation detail.

spot• 9 years ago

conda is the standard tool. tell your students to use it, not venv. problem solved.

dschep• 9 years ago

conda is the standard tool.

Since when? I was under the impression it's a data science focused alternative to the standard tools(pip, venv module, eventually pipenv).

fredley• 9 years ago

This situation is exacerbated by the fact that, for Windows, Anaconda is the only way to get packages like numpy etc. working without downloading prebuilt wheels. If pip on Windows worked reliably Anaconda would have no need to exist.

BeetleB• 9 years ago

To be honest, I never needed Anaconda to use NumPy/SciPy/matplotlib/pandas on Windows. I get that Anaconda makes it easier for people new to Python. But for seasoned Python folks, there's really no headache.

NumPy (and I think SciPy) used to be standard Windows installs (as in download an exe and install it). Pandas was too, but now you can use pip. The only catch was that you should install 32 bit python instead of 64 (not sure if that's still the case).

lyricat• 9 years ago

Not true. Anaconda/miniconda also provide a convenient way for package control which include binary packages and source code packages

For me, condo is good solution to install necessary dependences with little pain.

profalseidol• 9 years ago

glad java doesn't have this problem 99.9%. even if you teach very old java. it would still work today.

RayDonnelly7• 9 years ago

We have put `ensurepip` back in place and uploaded new Python packages for all platforms. `conda update python` should see you right. Thank you for bringing this up.

milliams2• 9 years ago

Thanks Ray, it's very much appreciated!

afarrell3• 9 years ago

Is anyone using conda to manage environments with versions of other languages/runtimes? For a while, I was using it to maintain different nodejs and ruby runtimes and package-sets, but stopped around node 6.6.0, mostly because I never got efficient enough at creating packages to create conda packages for different ruby or packages other than the interpreters themselves.

If anyone feels like it, you can run `conda create name=trycondanode --channel amfarrell nodejs=6.6.0`

tavert3• 9 years ago

Have tried for C, C++, Fortran, Julia, and a bit of R. Too many pythonisms (and requiring a fairly heavyweight miniconda setup to run) for it to work naturally when you actively don't want to be using any python. I think the lackluster adoption by any other communities is evidence of "language independence" not working out as smoothly as claimed.

Anaconda 5.0 Released

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