modern_python

This repository serves as inspiration/template for setting up your own modern python project. It uses hatch as a project manager. hatch sets up a virtual environment, installs the correct Python version, downloads and installs the dependencies, and runs the program. For a more comprehensive description, see below.

Installation

For users

• Install python3
• Install hatch using one of the methods described here
• Download or clone this repository
• Run hatch -v env create

For developers

• Install python3
• Install hatch using one of the methods described here
• Download or clone this repository
• Run hatch -v env create dev. This will download and install the appropriate Python version and any required packages
• Run hatch run dev:pre-commit install. This will set up pre-commit

Quick Start

For users

• hatch run modern_python

For developers

• hatch run dev:modern_python

Remove package

For users

• hatch env remove

For developers

• hatch env remove dev

Background

Python3 is one of most popular languages in scientific programming. While its flexible syntax is great for beginners, this can become a issue for larger projects. Therefore, the community has started to adopt a number of best practices to make working on larger, multi-person projects more convenient. Some of these best practices have been incorporated in auxiliary programs (from here: 'plugins') that provide capabilities linting, formatting, type hinting, and testing.

What is included in this repo?

• A basic project directory structure with some placeholder Python files (modern_python, tests)
• A set of standard files (in capital letters, e.g. LICENSE, CHANGELOG) for metadata about the repository
• A pyproject.toml file that manages metadata, versioning, dependencies, environments, and plugins. This file is also used by hatch for setting up environments (default, dev), download and installation of dependencies.
• A .pre-commit-config.yaml file that manages the plugins for linting (ruff-check), formatting (ruff-format), type hinting (mypy), and testing (pytest). If pre-commit is activated, this suite of programs is performed with each git commmit.

Who is this repo not for?

For Python projects not in version control (e.g. single-use scripts), such an advanced setup is likely not necessary. However, once a project becomes more elaborate, it is often useful to give it at least a minimum of formalism. This repo can help to reduce the time to do so, since it only requires a minimum of adaption.