Great On Their Own, Even Better Together: Application Development with Python, Typer, and Poetry
Have you ever tried to create a command-line application with an extensive
command-line interface and then upload it to to the Python Package Index (PyPI)?
If your experience is like mine, then you might have found the process confusing
because there are so many different tools and configurations from which to
choose! The good news is that there is a "sweet spot" that this presentation
will introduce: using Typer to create the command-line interface and Poetry to
manage application dependencies and virtual environments and upload the project
to PyPI. Software developers who follow the steps outlined in this talk will be
able to quickly and repeatably create command-line applications in Python that
are available for everyone to install and use through programs like pip and
pipx.
After briefly overviewing the challenges associated with other approaches to
creating and uploading Python-based command-line applications, this presentation
will introduce the key ideas behind the use of both Typer and Poetry. The
presentation will then explain each command that a software developer must use
to start a Python project with Poetry and to install dependencies like the Typer
package. Along with sketching the idea for an application that has a
command-line interface and showing how to implement it in Typer, the talk will
explain how to use Poetry to upload the application to PyPI and use pipx to
install and run it in an isolated environment. People who watch this talk will
gain the knowledge that they need to easily create full-fledged command-line
applications in Python.
To ensure that the content in this presentation is most beneficial to the people who watch it, this talk will be accompanied by three GitHub repositories in addition to the video presentation. First, the presenter will share a repository that contains the Open Broadcaster Software templates that were used to create the video. The second GitHub repository to accompany this talk will include the source code for the presentation slides. Both of these repositories will make it possible for the people who watch the presentation to recreate all aspects of it for their own talks and videos. The presenter will also offer another repository that contains all the presented source code segments in the context of a realistic Python program that uses both Typer and Poetry. This third GitHub repository will include, for instance, the instructions needed to install the project's dependencies with Poetry, run the program to illustrate the command-line interface built with Typer, and use Poetry to first build the project's binary source and wheel archives and then publish the project to PyPI.
- The challenges associated with using alternative programs for interface creation and packaging
- How to use Poetry to create a Python package for a program with a command-line interface
- The way in which Typer connects a function's type annotations to a program's command-line interface
- Examples of the commands needed to complete each project step, from creation and building to publishing on PyPI
- The common pitfalls associated with using Typer and Poetry and easy-to-follow steps for resolving them