A bit funny (sad) about the dependencies - zope, the early web application server - brought much to python (eg: eggs) - and essentially worked more like bundler + Gemfile/Gemfile.lock - with its zc.buildout dep (and more) manager. And like with ruby/rails, it could be difficult to get it to converge on "known good sets" of dependencies.

Take a look at this dated doc for zope 4 - anyone who's had to fight with bundler should see some similarities - good and bad i think:

https://docs.plone.org/4/en/old-reference-manuals/buildout/b...

You can still use it today, too (but you probably don't want to):

http://www.buildout.org/en/latest/