Frequently Asked Questions

Library vs Package vs Module?

Library is an informal term for a collection of packages and/or modules that work together to provide functionality and a package is a collection of modules organized in a directory, making it importable as a unit. Module is a single Python file containing code. In everyday use, “package” and “library” are often used interchangeably.

Library: Can contain multiple packages/modules
  └── Package: Can contain multiple modules
       └── Module: Individual Python file

What about Conda / Anaconda?

Conda (Anaconda) is a popular virtual environment and package manager, especially for data science tasks, similar to uv. The benefits of using uv over conda are mainly speed and simplicity. However, conda is better at handling complex binary dependencies (which can sometimes be a pain on Windows) and allows for also managing R versions and R packages (although with some drawbacks on Windows). If you want to use conda as your virtual environment and package manager, I recommend that you look into the faster mamba implementation.

What about Pandas?

Pandas is still a very popular choice for data management in Python. Feel free to use whatever tool you like and it shouldn’t be too hard to translate the Polars examples on this site into the Pandas equivalent.