Python packaging is broken mostly because bootstrapping is broken, and it cascades to packaging but people don't know the bootstrapping is responsible and blame packaging.
Not saying packaging doesn't have faults, but on it's own, on a good Python setup, it's actually better than average. But few people have a good setup. In fact most people don't know what a good setup looks like.
Yes, that's one of the most important success of the tool. Being in rust, it is completely independent from the Python setup, and therefore it doesn't care if you botched it. And with the indy greg build, it can even avoid the pyenv pitfall of compiling on your machine on linux.
My single setup routine has served me well for years, with little to no change: pipx as the tools manager, miniconda for env bootstrap and management, poetry (installed with pipx) for project management (works great with conda envs) and autoenv to ensure the correct env is always active for any project I'm currently in. The only issue I may potentially have is if I install anything apart from Python via conda, as that won't be reflected in the pyproject file.
Not saying packaging doesn't have faults, but on it's own, on a good Python setup, it's actually better than average. But few people have a good setup. In fact most people don't know what a good setup looks like.
And here is why bootstrapping is broken: https://www.bitecode.dev/p/why-is-the-python-installation-pr...