I think I agree with the blog post in its entirety, as a fellow Pythonista / Debianite. The Debian packages that are released always seem to be top-notch, stable, and fit for production. (Let's forget the OpenSSL incident, shall we?) I don't fear that the new version is going to break my currently installed software, and I'm not worried about dependencies somehow having been missed causing havoc. It just works.<p>(And when it doesn't, it's because I did something deep within dpkg/apt I should not have.)<p>I can't say I've always had the same experience with other distributions which is the reason why I moved to Debian in the first place. Truthfully, I can't ramble any specific scenarios off from the top of my head.<p>Any time I've had an issue with a Debian software package, the bug threads have always been constructive with proponents for both sides explaining why it should be one way over the other. Eventually, the best decision is made (even if I personally disagree).<p>However, the sacrifice for this stability is the fact packages can become a bit 'stale' when it comes to new versions. I don't mind sacrifices like this. And if you need newer stuff, that's why backports exist.<p>If you want the latest and the greatest use pip. But for the love of all things, couple your pip usage with a virtual environment. Hell, even if you aren't using pip get in the habit of using a venv.<p>My only bad experience with virtualenvs was a recent Python security update (related to /dev/random). The system libraries changed, the Python executable in the venv did not, sadness ensued. Even then, once I figured out the issue, it was a quick fix. Just re-init the virtualenv, and it fixed it for me. No need to move code around.<p>In short, if I want a stable system I don't need to babysit, I go with Debian. I trust the people maintaining the packages. I use virtualenvs for 90% of my Python development, and use pip inside of those venvs.<p>Hasn't failed me, yet. Probably shouldn't jinx myself...