I'd like to hear what people think as well, so everyone please fire away. The 1st option is very explicit and doesn't modify your environment. The problem I have with the latter option is not just messing with my environment variable (bulk of it is setting PATH), but what will be changed in future releases. I don't have time to read the activate script (btw, there is one activate script for sh/bash/zsh, csh, fish, and bat, but if you are none of them, which likely a very corner case, you are on your own).
Using the 1st method, I am certain the shell isn't being modified and loaded with stuff I don't need, and the command and arguments are explicit (when I look at top, or when I do strace).
Generally, you can continue to do #2; I use it when I am doing development, like having multiple terminals up and just source into the environment, then run pytest instead of the full path to pytest. But I highly recommend #1 when you are running your code in production (webapp or not). I am not too familiar with conda so I will defer that to the experts).
Using the 1st method, I am certain the shell isn't being modified and loaded with stuff I don't need, and the command and arguments are explicit (when I look at top, or when I do strace).
Generally, you can continue to do #2; I use it when I am doing development, like having multiple terminals up and just source into the environment, then run pytest instead of the full path to pytest. But I highly recommend #1 when you are running your code in production (webapp or not). I am not too familiar with conda so I will defer that to the experts).