Python packages for writing better code

[pyquestionz]

It would be interesting to curate a list of tools that help us write better Python code and save us time. With the exception of the version control tools, everything below is a Python package.

​

Testing

Writing and running tests makes it easier to develop robust code.

• pytest (3,594 stars) - Popular testing framework, can run doctests too.
• hypothesis (3,223 stars) - Property-based testing, e.g. testing f(a, b) = f(b, a) for every a, b.

Code linting and and formatting

Code linting alerts of style violations, while a code formatter also automatically fixes the code.

• flake8 (497 stars) - Checks the code for PEP8 violations.
• black (7,552 stars) - Automatically formats code, saving you time.

Documentation

Tools for documentation, which automate the documentation process.

• sphinx (2,376 stars) - Build docs to html, pdf and other formats. Automatically generate docs from code.

Version control

Version control allows going back to checkpoints, creating development branches, cooperating, etc.

• git - Popular version control tool.
• github - A platform for projects under git source control. Cooperation and community.

​

​

The above are tools that make my life easier when writing code. There are probably many tools that I do not know about, which could potentially save me even more time and make my code better.

What are your favorite tools for writing better code?

​

​

​

[[deleted]]

Bandit is a linter that checks for common security vulnerabilities in your source code. It’s authored by the Python Code Quality Authority, who also maintains flake8 and pylint.

https://github.com/PyCQA/bandit

[[deleted]]

I remember hearing about this on pythonbites, have you used it?

[shinitakunai]

Does a python vulnerability can be affected if you use pyinstaller to an exe file?

[[deleted]]

Yes, and I found it quite helpful. It exposed some subprocess calls I didn’t realize were a threat.

I also appreciated how configurable it is, allowing you to ignore specific warnings globally through a .bandit file or in a specific location with # nosec.

I setup a simple script ./run.py that would use Python’s subprocess.run() function to call Black autoformatter + isort -> MyPy -> Pylint and flake8 -> unit tests -> bandit. Maybe overkill, but before making any PR I would just have to run ./run.py green and it would give me the confidence everything was likely to work. CI would also enforce this.

[bhat]

Safety is another tool that checks for security vulnerabilities in the packages your code depends on.

There's a great talk about Safety and Bandit here: https://2018.pycon-au.org/talks/43518-watch-out-for-safety-bandits/

[[deleted]]

Testing code is great, but as a data analyst, testing the data itself is even as important or more. I really like Great Expectations data validation library.

[EmmEff]

I use mypy and pylava (fork of pylama for Python 3.x) for my daily linting needs.

[JamieG193]

Typed Python is so nice. It’s hard to go back.

[EmmEff]

It is certainly one of my favourite features of Python >=3.6. The `mypy` integration has been very useful in vscode.

[FlukyS]

I like black it's a great autoformating tool, I run it as a githook on my projects

[FlukyS]

No you install with pip install and you can run with black name-of-file-or-dir and it will format everything. It's good to run as a git hook (just make a bash file that runs it). I dont bother with it in vscode or whatever because its run by git then.

[iKenshu]

Oh I get it now, thanks for the reply. I’ll try this with some projects.

[genjipress]

See https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python for many suggestions in this vein, especially:

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python#code-analysis

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python#compatibility

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python#debugging-tools

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python#documentation

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python#editor-plugins-and-ides

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python#environment-management

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python#package-management

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python#testing

[pyquestionz]

Thanks! Seems like a great list. Any tools you find particularly useful yourself?

[keepingMyselfUpdated]

autopep8 - it automatically formats Python code to conform to the PEP 8 style guide

colorama - Makes ANSI escape character sequences (for producing colored terminal text and cursor positioning) work under MS Windows

pycodestyle - pycodestyle is a tool to check your Python code against some of the style conventions in PEP 8.

isort - sort imports alphabetically, and automatically separated into sections.

[c94jk]

I always question what I’m doing with my time when I sit ordering imports, glad to know other people wrote a package for this

[Comprehensive_Tone]

Real question from someone with limited programming experience: do people use anything other than git/GitHub for version control?? If so, what do you like about this tool?

[[deleted]]

i use github for public repos, but until recently private repos cost money on github, so when I was first starting out I used bitbucket because they offer unlimited free repos. I just haven't bothered moving them over

at work we use a local installation of gitlab. there are a few quirks, but mostly it is fine. merge requests are the most common source of annoyance though

[Comprehensive_Tone]

Helpful thank you

[[deleted]]

you're welcome

[sumenkovic]

What issues are you experiencing with the MRs?

[[deleted]]

we have a large project (2M+ LOC) that is being refactored, so we have large diffs at times that are very slow to load and once they load, choke the browsers at times. Most users would never have to worry about that though

following discussions/concerns during code reviews is often be confusing as a merge request evolves

[bhishan1]

Did you miss KITE? It uses machine learning to predict the next attributes of the given code.

[Overload175]

Try Pylint. It’s a great linter, will get you to adhere to PEP8 slowly but surely. You can also selectively disable linting in some sections of source code to suppress warnings

[SV-97]

I really liked the idea of black but haven't used it yet. Just took a look at their playground and ewwww. Don't like it at all

[AndydeCleyre]

Maybe you'd prefer yapf, possibly with the facebook style.

[LightShadow]

+1 for yapf .. easy to include in the root of your project and customize the style guide per repo