I have a 2-part question about conda vs. pip virtual environments. I found great information on the answers What is the difference between pip and conda? and Does Conda replace the need for virtualenv? but still have something unclear.
I have a given python project (say PR) that I need to install and further develop on a linux server (say S) where python is installed with anaconda. Now, the usage/installation instructions of PR tell me to use python to create virtual environment and pip to install all packages. That is,
python3 -m venv PR
pip install --editable . (the dot included at the end)
According to "pip install --editable ./" vs "python setup.py develop" the latter reads the file setup.py (included in PR) which contains a function setup(...) with option install_requires listing all the required packages and installs them automatically. I have tested this on my own computer (which does not have conda) and it works fine. At least no error messages.
Now I need to further develop PR on S. My question Part 1: can I use conda instead of pip to create and update virtual environment? If yes, what would be the conda command replacing pip install --editable . ? I'm positive I will later need to install other packages as well. I'm worried about conflicts between conda/pip.
On S, I have Spyder and no other python IDEs. I have never used Spyder but I'm very familiar with PyCharm (Windows) and VS Code (Linux) so I assume debugging with Spyder will be similar to those. My question Part 2 (tied to Part 1): if I have to use pip to install packages, does Spyder see those? Or can it only see conda-installed packages?