Initial Application

To get started with our development, we will build the smallest chunk of code we can, to just run the program.

First, create a home for the code inside of the project directory. This new directory should have the same name as the project. Run this command while working in the top-level project directory:

mkdir mmqprop

Now, edit a new file inside of this new directory:

vim mmqprop/__init__.py

This file will turn the directory into a Python package. Here is the code you need:

mmqprop/__init.py:

__version__ = '0.1.0'

def version():
    return __version__

This snippet establishes the version number for the project and sets up a way to fetch that number. We will set things up to update this number as the project development proceeds.

Next, we set up another piece of code that will help us run the program. This file also lives in the mmqprop package directory:

mmqprop/__main__.py:

from . import version

print("mmqprop version:", version())

In order to demonstrate running this code in this Jupyter page, we need to convince the (Jupyter application to move to the right directory and then run the command.

From the top level project directory, we should just use this command:

python -m mmqprop

First, let’s see where Juputer thinks we are working with Python code on this page:

!pwd

/Users/rblack/_dev/mmqprop/book/content/development

We actually need to be three levels up to get to the project root directory. We can make Jupyter move there, then run the command as follows:

!cd ../../.. && python -m mmqprop

mmqprop version: 0.1.0

runtype: single False

That is what we should see at this point.

The first part of that line changes the working directory to the top level of the project, three levels up. The && combines commands, one after the other. The last part of the line is the actual command that runs the program. After this entire line completes, Jupyter will return to the original working directory, which is where this document page lives.

!pwd

/Users/rblack/_dev/mmqprop/book/content/development

At this point we have a basic, very primitive, Python application running. Next, we will set up testing.