developer-tools 1.0.3

Useful tools for Python developers

Useful tools for Python developers.

This is mostly an example to show how autopip can be used to install a group of apps with various version specifications, but the author does install it as it conveniently provides all the tools useful for doing Python software development.

To install:

autopip install developer-tools

Which should output something like the following – line 3 is the interesting part:

Installing developer-tools to /home/mzheng/.apps/developer-tools/0.0.3
Hourly auto-update enabled via cron service
This app has defined "autopip" entry points to install: ansible==2.5.4 ... twine==1.* workspace-tools
Installing ansible to /home/mzheng/.apps/ansible/2.5.4
Updating script symlinks in /home/mzheng/.apps/bin
+ ansible
...
...
Installing workspace-tools to /home/mzheng/.apps/workspace-tools/3.2.4
Hourly auto-update enabled via cron service
Updating script symlinks in /home/mzheng/.apps/bin
+ wst

And everything is installed as expected:

$ autopip list
ansible              2.5.4    /home/mzheng/.apps/ansible/2.5.4
ansible-hostmanager  0.2.3    /home/mzheng/.apps/ansible-hostmanager/0.2.3  [updates hourly]
autopip              1.0.2    /home/mzheng/.apps/autopip/1.0.2              [updates hourly]
awscli               1.15.31  /home/mzheng/.apps/awscli/1.15.31             [updates monthly]
developer-tools      1.0.1    /home/mzheng/.apps/developer-tools/1.0.1      [updates hourly]
flake8               3.5.0    /home/mzheng/.apps/flake8/3.5.0               [updates weekly]
rstcheck             3.0.1    /home/mzheng/.apps/rstcheck/3.0.1
twine                1.11.0   /home/mzheng/.apps/twine/1.11.0               [updates weekly]
workspace-tools      3.2.4    /home/mzheng/.apps/workspace-tools/3.2.4      [updates hourly]

How does it work? You can tell autopip to install other apps by setting an autopip entry point group in setup.py with the list of apps and versions. Versions can be pinned to major or a specific version, or use latest to install the latest version. Update frequency can also be specified per app. Seeing is believing, so take a look at the autopip entry point group in developer-tools’ setup.py:

entry_points={
    'autopip': [
        'ansible = 2.5.4',                 # Pin to specific version without auto-update (recommended for 3rd party)
        'ansible-hostmanager = latest',    # Install latest and update hourly (for apps that you own)
        'autopip = latest',                # So autopip updates itself
        'awscli = 1.15 [monthly]',         # Pin to minor and update monthly
        'flake8 = 3 [weekly]',             # Pin to major and update weekly
        'twine = 1 [weekly]',
        'rstcheck = 3.0.1',
        'workspace-tools = latest',
    ],
},

For better security and user experience, it is recommended to pin to a specific version – at least minor – for 3rd party apps. For apps that you own where you have good versioning in the app, then latest works better to let the app control its own release.