Hacker News
Wrap Go binaries in Python wheels
19 points by ankitg12
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15 comments
Philip-J-Fry
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Why wouldn't I just `go install` from the git repo? Why is it worth encouraging the use of python tooling for generic application distribution when things like homebrew or chocolatey already exist?
je42
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You would need to have go installed. For my golang opensource project, also added releases on pypi and also npm.
bbg2401
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From what I recall, Simon believes non-technical people or developers new to an ecosystem (or lacking a specific toolchain) should be given options to use existing language-specific package repositories and package management tools to reduce friction while engaging in agentic coding.
I can see the rationale but I can't help thinking it's utterly absurd.
WhyNotHugo
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What kind of "non-technical" person is fine with using "pip install …", but not "go install …"?
mbreese
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The kind of person who only knows Python or has learned a bit by following a Python tutorial. There are a lot more resources for people who are just starting to learn programming in Python. I can also see a use-case where there is an image with pip installed, but not any of the Golang packages.
It’s kind of niche, but I can see a place for it.
verdverm
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Is uvx and python aware of GOOS / GOARCH when using this method? It looks like it, but also means you have to download all of the binaries instead of just the one you need?
I agree it is absurd, and then there has to be a python package one has to create, something go avoided by using the git repo URL directly
mbreese
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See here [1] for more information on the rationale behind this.
[1] https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/4/distributing-go-binarie...
geophph
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I’m curious if I could use this to write my webserver in Go, then call back to Python for the data sciencey stuff over stdin(?), but all in one nice tidy package? I mean right now I use fastapi and write it all in Python but I happen to enjoy writing Go. Does it matter either way? No I have like 4 users, but it seems not too crazy either?
the__alchemist
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This is still surprising! There are similar tools for rust, and presumably it works for arbitrary binaries. Can be a convenient installation approach if you expect your user base to use python. E.g. for distributing tools written in Go, Rust, C, etc that aid Python development. To the user, it's a standard `pip install x`, but x is not a python script.