Update environment.yml to use conda scores

[mareecarroll]

Now that scores is in conda-forge, update environment.yml to use this instead of pip

This change would also require an update to https://scores.readthedocs.io/en/stable/contributing.html#conda-based-virtual-environment

[tennlee]

Yes, that would be great, thanks for noticing. Is this something you would like to do, or should I take care of it? It would be good to do before the next release, which I'm currently thinking might occur perhaps this weekend or in the following week or two.

[mareecarroll]

@tennlee The conda install will only install minimal. Do we want to hold off on this until we are able to have variants in conda. Or do we want a environment.yml for minimal and and environment-all.yml that still uses pip to install the all variant?

[tennlee]

I think hold off, but I could be convinced differently. I'm not sure I fully understand all the pros and cons of the options and it would be nice to set that out. I don't think there's a need to rush this one* (see note at the end).

As I undertand it, environment.yml is for creating new conda environments rather than for installing the package, using conda, into an existing environment. That second use case is currently covered by the conda-forge channel, and will always install the "minimal" variant.

Those using the environment.yml file are likely to be creating new environments, in some kind of developer mode, working from a checkout of the repository, either to run tutorials or set up for development. They aren't going to want the "minimal" variant for those purposes. They are also more likely to understand their setup and how to customise it to their needs, and how to work with PyPI if needed.

It would be possible to set environment.yml to use conda-forge for the scores package, however then people would end up with a minimal installation, and then have to do a lot of work to set up for their likely use cases, which is kind of self-defeating. At least at the moment it suits the purpose of setting up for development.

I think the proper sequence is for conda-forge variants to be fully explored first. Then, assuming there's a sensible solution, environment.yml can be set up to install a variant with appropriate dependencies for the developer or tutorial type use case.

Thinking a little further, perhaps people working with conda, for development, are best served by really focusing in that experience. Perhaps something that installs the dependencies from conda but uses pip to install an editable install and assuming a local checkout would be best.

• that said, the environment.yml file currently has a comment saying scores is unavailable from any conda repositories, which is no longer the case. So this commend could be updated and improved in some fashion.

[mareecarroll]

Created #657 to update the comment in environment.yml