How to prevent outside updates to break a Python program

There are several ways to freeze a Python environment to prevent it from being impacted by updates to the operating system or other software.

One common way to do this is to use a virtual environment, which is a self-contained environment that isolates the Python interpreter and any installed packages from the system-wide installation.
This allows you to install and manage specific versions of packages and dependencies without affecting other Python applications on the system.

To create a virtual environment, you can use the built-in venv module in Python 3:

$ python3 -m venv myenv

This will create a new virtual environment in the myenv directory. You can activate the virtual environment by running the activate script in the bin directory:

$ source myenv/bin/activate

Once the virtual environment is activated, you can install packages using pip without affecting other Python applications on the system:

$ pip install mypackage

To freeze the environment, you can use the pip freeze command to generate a list of installed packages and their versions:

$ pip freeze > requirements.txt

This will create a file called requirements.txt that contains a list of all installed packages and their versions.
You can then use this file to recreate the environment on another system or to restore the environment if it becomes corrupted or outdated:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

By using a virtual environment and freezing the requirements,
you can ensure that your Python environment remains stable and consistent,
even as the underlying system and software changes.
Like a time capsule