Launching Python, Virtual Environments, and Locking Dependencies With Brett Cannon

2022-01-14

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Would you like a simple command to launch your Python programs using the newest version of the language installed on your machine? This week on the show, we continue our conversation with Brett Cannon. Brett discusses his project, the Python Launcher for Unix. We dive into Brett’s workflow to set up projects, virtual environments, and prepare for distribution. He shares some of the tools he employs and reasons for keeping things simple. We also talk about PEP 665, which specifies a file format to list an application’s Python package installation req...

We dive into Brett’s workflow to set up projects, virtual environments, and prepare for distribution. He shares some of the tools he employs and reasons for keeping things simple.

We also talk about PEP 665, which specifies a file format to list an application’s Python package installation requirements. Brett shares why he co-authored the PEP and a bit of the community’s reaction. It leads to a deeper conversation about going beyond ‘requirements.txt’ to lock files.

Course Spotlight: Data Visualization Interfaces in Python With Dash

In this course, you’ll learn how to build a dashboard using Python and Dash. Dash is a framework for building data visualization interfaces. It helps data scientists build fully interactive web applications quickly.

Topics:

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:01:43 – Python Launcher for Unix
00:09:36 – Hiding a virtual environment directory
00:13:30 – Sponsor: Scout APM
00:14:17 – Environment managers and being an editor vs an IDE person
00:17:32 – PEP 665, lock files, and Brett’s dependency workflow
00:20:56 – The hurdles of source distributions and version control repositories
00:25:07 – Drawbacks of requirements files and standardizing lock files
00:28:19 – Why PEP 665 is controversial and the changes to setuptools
00:33:48 – Video Course Spotlight
00:35:16 – Are these examples of growing pains?
00:37:51 – Unfair comparisons to packaging in Rust or other languages
00:42:35 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
00:43:54 – What do you want to learn next?
00:49:23 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

Introducing the Python Launcher for Unix
brettcannon/python-launcher: Python launcher for Unix
Python Extension for VSCode
Why use Flit? — Flit 3.5.1 documentation
pip-tools: A set of tools to keep your pinned Python dependencies fresh.
PEP 665 – A file format to list Python dependencies for reproducibility of an application | Python.org
venv — Creation of virtual environments — Python 3.10.1 documentation
virtualenvwrapper · PyPI
pdm - Python Development Master · PyPI
pyflow - Streamlines working with Python projects and files · PyPI
pipenv · PyPI
Thoughts on where tools fit into a workflow
What to do when you botch a release on PyPI
Python Virtual Environments: A Primer – Real Python
Why you shouldn’t invoke setup.py directly | Paul Ganssle
python-wasm: Build scripts and configuration for building CPython for Emscripten
Pyodide — A Python distribution for the browser and Node.js based on WebAssembly
WebAssembly
Programming Rust, 2nd Edition
Brett Cannon on Twitter: “PEP 665 got rejected today 😞”