Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#1

Post by peruvian » Wed, May 27, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

Looking to do Django and Flask dev. I want something between using the system Python and a complex tool that manages many different versions.

I've heard good things about poetry, but what about actual Python? Is the homebrew (macOS) Python 3.x good enough?

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#2

Post by BrandonBradley » Thu, May 28, 2020, 12:05 AM UTC

pyenv and pyenv-virtualenv

Re: Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#3

Post by Jugurtha » Thu, May 28, 2020, 12:09 AM UTC

Has your current Python development setup failed you yet? Are Python versions preventing you from producing useful software? Are you looking to explore and experiment with setups, or is shipping useful software what counts?

"The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python"[^1] does a tour of the tools that would be very useful. Virtual environments, testing, frameworks, etc.

[^1]: https://docs.python-guide.org/

Re: Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#4

Post by scottwernervt » Thu, May 28, 2020, 12:54 AM UTC

I plan on trying https://jacobian.org/2019/nov/11/python-environment-2020/ which uses pyenv and poetry.

Re: Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#5

Post by raizinho » Thu, May 28, 2020, 1:01 AM UTC

I use conda through miniconda. It comes with great support for reproducible virtual environments.

Re: Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#6

Post by vfg1234 » Thu, May 28, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

Just use Pycharm

Re: Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#7

Post by joshvm » Thu, May 28, 2020, 1:33 AM UTC

Any virtual environment will take precedence over either the system or homebrew Python. Since you want to deal with multiple versions (or Python? Or Django/Flask? Both?) you'll definitely be wanting some kind of isolated environment. It's nice to have Homebrew as a base since it'll be more recent than the system install, but it doesn't make a difference.

Miniconda/conda is pretty good. It's a lot more stable than it used to be. I use a plain old venv to run Django on a production server.

Poetry is good for packaging, I've not tried it as a virtual environment manager. It seems more fiddly to me than just running `conda create -n blah python=3.8; conda activate blah`. Sometimes I just want a system-wide "good" environment and Poetry's more suited to single folder/project configurations that you might eventually want to release as a standalone package (I may be wrong here). For easy publishing to PyPI though, Poetry is great.

Re: Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#8

Post by thijsvandien » Thu, May 28, 2020, 1:35 AM UTC

Start out with just pyenv. It's not complicated and helps a lot if you don't want system-wide updates to mess with your virtual environments (you don't). Even though pip may not be ideal, it works well enough. So far, more advanced alternatives for me created at least as many problems as they supposedly solved. See for yourself what issues you'll have (if any) and then pick the tools that solve them best. The editor/IDE is a personal thing. PyCharm is popular, but I never felt much chemistry with it. Currently enjoying VSCodium with the Python plugin. It will suggest to install some more packages for things like linting. Consider throwing in mypy. All that should get you pretty far. Better to start lean and build it out later, as needed.

Re: Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#9

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, May 28, 2020, 2:01 AM UTC

PyCharm, IPython and Jupyter make writing, testing and debugging Python tolerable. Packaging has always been a pain no matter what you use, but just try to avoid pipenv.

Homebrew or XCode updates seemed to nuke my virtualenvs on macOS, whereas I've been able to use the same virtualenvs on Linux for half of a decade.

Re: Ask HN: Simple but modern Python dev set-up?

#10

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 28, 2020, 2:55 AM UTC

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