Appendix 4
Packaging and Distributing Python Projects

The idea of packaging and distribution seems so serious. Most of Python has a rather informal feeling about it, and now suddenly, we’re talking “packaging and distribution.” However, sharing code is part of working with Python. Therefore, it’s important to learn to share code properly with the builtin Python tools. And while the topic is bigger than what I cover here, it needn’t be intimidating. All I’m talking about is how to share code in a way that is more traceable and consistent than emailing zipped directories of modules.

This appendix is intended to give you a comfortable understanding of how to set up a project so that it is installable with pip, how to create a source distribution, and how to create a wheel. This is enough for you to be able to share your code locally with a small team. To share it further through PyPI, I’ll refer you to some other resources. Let’s see how it’s done.