Dead Simple Python

18 Packaging and Distribution

The best code in the world amounts to little if you never ship it. Once your project is functional, you should work out how you’ll package and distribute it, before continuing development. The trouble is, packaging in Python sometimes feels like beating yourself with a wet trout.

Often, the difficulty doesn’t come from packaging your own code—that’s usually easy enough—but rather from handling your code’s dependencies, especially its non-Python dependencies. Distribution can be a snarly issue for even experienced programmers, due in part to the diverse scenarios in which Python is used. Still, if you understand ...