A sad programmer thinking about the time wasted with python project management and debugging

I have a few things I’ve seen across companies and projects that I’ve seen working with Python that are annoying, hard to maintain, and are antiquated. Lets jump right in:

Use this link to see pass the paywall, if you need it: https://medium.com/@BryMei/stop-making-your-python-projects-like-it-was-15-years-ago-125436b470a5?sk=288190460562d31cd9ca6b5934a1c7d4

Use PyProject.toml instead of requirements.txt

Don’t do it. Stop putting in your README.md “install dependencies with pip install -r requirements.txt”. Can pip do it? Yes. Should you? No. requirements.txt is a accidental standard. Just use pyproject.toml. It makes sense, pip understands it, you can define dev and groups of dependencies in it so you don’t have to start using “dev-requirements.txt” and a slew of cicd pipeline rules.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/1bmxe6i/whats_the_difference_between_pyprojecttoml/

Use a python version and project manager like Poetry or UV

I’m partial to UV, but I like Poetry too. They both will read the pyproject.toml file, handle dependencies, building, running applications in sandboxes, managing version of python and more. It will take you an hour to read about these tools and it will save you head ache.

At a bare minimum, use a virtual environment like venv to save yourself some global dependency headaches.

Also UV will install dependencies way faster than pip.

Use Type hints

Type hints are great for readability and helping linters like ruff and mypy know what the hell is happening in your code. Your coworkers will like your code better too.

This is hard to understand when I have to pick up your code 2 years later:

def do_something(data):
  for x in data:
    for y in data[x]:
      transmute(data[x][y])

Make it easier:

def alter_map(data: Map) -> None:
""" Alters data in a 2d map. Alters the object refernced directly
"""
  for x in map:
    for y in map[x]:
      transmute(map[x][y])

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