How do I setup a new python project?

Python prides itself on there only being one best way of doing things. However, if you have ever had the desire to create a package that can be distributed in python, then you may have run into some frustration. Out of the box, there does not appear to be a single clear concise way of creating a new project. After hearing over and over again, that the correct way in Python should be obvious, in this area, it seems that this is definitely not the case.

There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.

— Zen of Python

However, it does seem that there are a couple of solutions that have been put forward to solve this problem, and none of them have officially been endorsed by the people that manage Python. You can do it all by hand, and I give you credit if you do, but this is more work than I want to keep up with. I started to walk through the documentation to use setuptools to configure a package, and almost wanted to cry. Not really, but when you cannot give a clean concise way to build and distribute a python package, there is a problem.

The only thing that is clear is that you should have a setup.py file. Other than that, you are on your own. As I said before, the documentation from setuptools is laughable. Maybe if I did not mind reading pages upon pages to get a simple package started I would be OK, but I don’t have the patience for it. I thought that it would make sense to look at existing packages, but once again, everybody seems to setup their projects differently. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with developers taking their own routes to setup a package, especially after seeing how little guidance there is. Maybe packaging was an afterthought for Python.

Having used Ruby in the past, I was sure that there had to be packages out there to assist in setting up the initial package structure and environment. Now, I do not expect it to write the code for me, but the basics of what is in the package, file layout, author information, etc. And after a bit of searching and head scratching I finally found what I was looking for. Well, at least I got a bit further down the rabbit hole. I had honestly thought that by this point I would be working on migrating my app from Ruby to Python, not trying to figure out how to create a package.

What tools are there?

It seems that upon first glance, the top three tools for creating Python packages are Poetry, Pipenv, and Hatch. And when I say creating, I mean creation and management of the packages. There is always doing it by hand, and maybe I will end up there, but that goes against the grain of automation.

I have spent a bit of time looking at these three options, plus managing it by hand. After looking at it for a bit, I think that I am going to throw Pipenv out the window. The lack of proper documentation is a stopping point for me. Also, it seems like there is a fork that is now responsible for the actual development, and not the original source itself.

That leaves me with Hatch and Poetry. Decisions, decisions, decisions. I am not sure which route I am going to go down.

Which one do you choose?

I think that I am going to start by creating my project using both methods. Early on, it should be simple enough to create the source and copy it between projects. The real question will be, which one will make management easier in the long run. That means, in my next post, I am going to start building, or more accurately, rebuilding cfmason.

Within a week or two I should be able to make my decision. But, I am going to build them out from scratch both ways, and record the process. Heck, that will probably be harder than the coding itself. Documenting this stuff is not easy.

See you in a week.