This doesn’t surprise me in the least. For the longest time the only way to update Python was to compile it from source… They just don’t care too much about making their tooling work nicely. And that’s before you even add the complexity of Nix.
I would maybe just not use Nix for this at all and try something like Rye, which is a third party attempt to fix the Python mess. It lets you specify a Python version and supports lock files so in theory everything is actually reproducible… so it’s at least part way to what you’d have with Nix.
This doesn’t surprise me in the least. For the longest time the only way to update Python was to compile it from source… They just don’t care too much about making their tooling work nicely. And that’s before you even add the complexity of Nix.
I would maybe just not use Nix for this at all and try something like Rye, which is a third party attempt to fix the Python mess. It lets you specify a Python version and supports lock files so in theory everything is actually reproducible… so it’s at least part way to what you’d have with Nix.