16
Dependencies and Virtual Environments

Python runs in an environment defined by the OS. There are some slight differences between Windows, macOS, and most Linux environments. We’ll set aside micro-controller environments, since the ability to tailor those environments is quite a bit more involved. We’ll try to minimize the OS differences to focus on the common aspects that are universally available.

There are several common aspects within run-time environments. We can divide these into two groups:

Persistent

Aspects of the environment that change slowly.

• The Python run-time in use. This includes a binary application and often includes a number of external libraries.

• The standard libraries available. These are accessed via the importer, and are generally available via the import statement. They are generally found by their path, relative to the Python binary.

• The other libraries installed as site packages. These are also...