python-project-structure 0.0.5

Python project structure foundation or template

This repository is meant to be used as a minimal, yet opinionated baseline for Python software projects. It includes:

• Basic Python “distribution”/project metadata

• A Makefile for local development build and maintenance tasks

The intended use is to add this repository as a VCS remote for your project. Thus developers can merge changes from this repository as we make changes related to Python project structure and tooling. As we add structure specific to certain types of projects (e.g. CLI scripts, web development, etc.), frameworks (e.g. Flask, Pyramid, Django, etc.), libraries and such, branches will be used for each such variation such that structure common to different variations can be merged back into the branches for those specific variations.

Installation

Install using any tool for installing standard Python 3 distributions such as pip:

$ sudo pip3 install python-project-structure

Usage

See the command-line help for details on options and arguments:

$ usage: python-project-structure [-h]

Python project structure foundation or template, top-level package.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

Motivation

There are many other Python project templates so why make another? I’ve been doing Python development since 1998, so I’ve had plenty of time to develop plenty of opinions of my own.

What I want in a template is complete tooling (e.g. test coverage, linting, formatting, CI/CD, etc.) but minimal dependencies, structure, and opinion beyond complete tooling (e.g. some non-Python build/task system, structure for frameworks/libraries not necessarily being used, etc.). I couldn’t find a template that manages that balance so here we are.

I also find it hard to discern from other templates why they made what choices the did. As such, I also use this template as a way to try out various different options in the Python development world and evaluate them for myself. You can learn about my findings and the reasons the choices I’ve made in the commit history.

Most importantly, however, I’ve never found a satisfactory approach to keeping project structure up to date over time. So the primary motivation is to use this repository as a remote from which we can merge structure updates over the life of projects using the template.