Resolving problems in Python dependencies

Abstract

One of the most difficult problems to diagnose and fix in programs is when a library misbehaves because of incompatibilities with its dependencies. Fixing such issues can be time-consuming and the fixes might require domain knowledge about libraries that application developers should be able to treat as black boxes. In this talk we will take a look at a concept called prescriptions used in Python's cloud resolver called Thoth. Prescriptions can assist in resolving high quality dependencies. We will also introduce a service called Dependency Monkey that can spot issues in dependencies and can be used to create prescriptions to feedback the knowledge for the cloud based Python resolver.