Why is the Python environment so fragile, and why do we tolerate this?

Never run pip outside a virtualenv. Never install packages with pip —local. I saw a team of data scientists who could never keep their environments working because they did the later. Don’t waste your time with anaconda.

How do you mean? Can you clarify a bit?

virtualenv or Poetry. What's the problem?

https://xkcd.com/1987/ is still true.