Boilerplate for Python Projects

Description

Skeleton code for a new Python project.

Layout
- for single package "helloworld" project with a main module and helper modules (from Python Application Layouts: A Reference – Real Python)
- tests for main and helper modules
Dependencies
- pipenv based dependency management
- It also handles virtual environment management
- Basic development libraries included such as
  - flake8 for linting, formatting style and other warnings
  - black for auto formatting. Frees developers from thinking about style and bikeshedding
  - pytest for unittesting
  - mypy for static type checking (tried pyre-check first but thanks to Unix only dependency fcntl it does not work on windows.)
setup.py for distribution
README.md for project description
.gitignore for common files not needed in version control
Recommended editors
- VS Code with following extensions. As the main IDE.
  - Python - Visual Studio Marketplace
  - PlantUML - Visual Studio Marketplace (requires GraphViz) for software design with UML diagrams
    - Needs Graphviz to be installed and in PATH to produce diagrams other than sequence
    - PlanetUML has lots of diagram examples
  - Better Comments - Visual Studio Marketplace
- Vim. When not having access to my desktop/laptop. For example, when SSH'ing to my devserver from iPad.

Download the project zip file (TODO: think about a flow with git clone)
Rename files and folder according to new project name
pipenv
- if pipenv does not exist in base Python distribution install it via pip install pipenv
- pipenv install --dev --pre to create virtual environment for the project under ~/.virtualenvs/PROJECT_NAME-hash and install developer dependencies. (Currently --pre is needed for black because its version is less then 1.)
- to activate project environment pipenv shell
- (note that the project itself is in "packages" of Pipfile, which runs pip install -e . with above command. That installs the project as a module to virtual environment too. It is required by pytest.)
git init to initialize a git repo
for VS Code
- set python.pythonPath setting (TODO: figure out the right way of doing this.)
- install following extensions if not already installed
Runing unittests
- CLI: Run either pytest or python -m pytest from project root
  - (The latter puts project root to sys.path)
  - python -m pytest tests/ --collect-only command to only discover tests
- VS Code: Tests can be discovered and run from the "Tests" tab. Individual tests can be run from the opened file directly.
  - (Added an __init__.py file in tests/ folder to turn it into a package (which can do imports from sibling packages). It shouldn't be needed but the way test discovery mechanism works in VS Code Python extension requires that. See 1, 2 )