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pyds-cli version 0.4.0 released!

written by Eric J. Ma on 2024-04-07 | tags: pyds-cli data science standards cookiecutter templates github actions

I have released a new version of pyds-cli, and I wanted to share what's new there!

Following on the heels of my last blog post, I decided to update pyds-cli to include the following upgrades:

  1. The package now uses cookiecutter templates to scaffold a repo.
  2. Included in the package is a new talks initializer that scaffolds out a talk based on the use of reveal-md.

Let's take a look at each of them.

Cookiecutter Templates

Previously, pyds-cli had a templates/ directory within the repo from which we copied files over to a new repository. However, maintaining the code that copied over files was tedious, especially if I wanted to evolve the structure of new repositories to keep up with evolving Python community standards. (One example would be the adoption of pyproject.toml as a single configuration file for Python projects.)

By switching over to cookiecutter templates, knowing which files get copied over is much easier -- it is everything as templated out in the source directory:

❯ tree "{{ cookiecutter.__repo_name }}/"
Permissions Size User    Date Modified Git Name
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- {{ cookiecutter.__repo_name }}
.rw-r--r--   173 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── .bumpversion.cfg
.rw-r--r--    34 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── .darglint
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── .devcontainer
.rw-r--r--   797 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  ├── devcontainer.json
.rw-r--r--  2.6k ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  └── Dockerfile
.rw-r--r--   242 ericmjl 30 Mar 19:07   -I ├── .env
.rw-r--r--    29 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── .flake8
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── .github
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  └── workflows
.rw-r--r--  2.3k ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── .gitignore
.rw-r--r--   788 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── .pre-commit-config.yaml
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── docs
.rw-r--r--    90 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  ├── api.md
.rw-r--r--   607 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  ├── apidocs.css
.rw-r--r--    21 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  ├── config.js
.rw-r--r--   560 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  └── index.md
.rw-r--r--   697 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── environment.yml
.rw-r--r--   124 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── MANIFEST.in
.rw-r--r--  1.7k ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── mkdocs.yaml
.rw-r--r--  1.9k ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── pyproject.toml
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── tests
.rw-r--r--    49 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  ├── test___init__.py
.rw-r--r--    54 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  ├── test_cli.py
.rw-r--r--    75 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  └── test_models.py
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- └── {{ cookiecutter.__module_name }}
.rw-r--r--   237 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   --    ├── __init__.py
.rw-r--r--   661 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   --    ├── cli.py
.rw-r--r--    61 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   --    ├── models.py
.rw-r--r--    35 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   --    ├── preprocessing.py
.rw-r--r--   205 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   --    ├── schemas.py
.rw-r--r--    53 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   --    └── utils.py

An additional benefit of using cookiecutter is the simplification of the CLI! Because cookiecutter comes with its own tools to prompt users for information, I could remove a lot of CLI code that was concerned with the same task.

(If you're wondering why there are so many files inside a repo, it follows the core idea of treating data science projects as software. You can read more about it on my previous blog post.)

Talks Templating

Apart from using cookie-cutter templates, I also took the chance to write pyds talk init, which initializes a new repository with materials necessary to build a talk that gets hosted on GitHub pages, with auto-publishing using GitHub actions.

❯ tree "{{ cookiecutter.__repo_name }}/" -L 3
Permissions Size User    Date Modified Git Name
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- {{ cookiecutter.__repo_name }}
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── .github
drwxr-xr-x     - ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │  └── workflows
.rw-r--r--   762 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- │     └── publish.yaml
.rw-r--r--     8 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── .gitignore
.rw-r--r--   169 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- ├── index.md
.rw-r--r--   439 ericmjl  7 Apr 12:14   -- └── Makefile

As you can see, it's a relatively simple setup with only an index.md file for the talk. There is a Makefile to host the talk locally. This was prompted by my distaste for flashy PowerPoint slide decks and my preference for using plain text to create content. My upcoming talks at BioIT world and ODSC East 2024 will be written using this templating system!

Try it out

I wrote pyds-cli to democratize standardized project initialization for data scientists. Making it easier for data scientists to do the right thing goes a long way to encouraging best practices. If you're in the same camp, please give pyds-cli a shot!

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