You can do a lot of amazing things with Python. When I started teaching myself Python last year, one of the most interesting things I discovered was how relatively easy it was to create CLI apps. Since I learn best by doing, I went ahead to create norris-cli among other apps, and discovered the possibilities were endless 😄.

Building these kinds of projects is a great way to learn, and it's super fun. To improve my skills and help others learn, I'll be doing a whole series on "Building CLI Apps with Python". I'll start with the basics and go step by step. In the end, we'll put what we've learned into practice by creating a practice project^*. Of course, what we'll make won't be very useful, but we'll learn enough in the process to go ahead and make something truly useful.

What I'll cover:

• Setting things up (Python 3.x, pip, Virtualenv, Click, etc)
• Commands, options & arguments
• Using Setuptools
• Prompting users for input
• CRUD (with an online API) (Practice project)
  • Working with data structures
  • Writing to local files
• Testing with pytest
• Posting a package on Pypi

I hope both the experienced and those just starting out with Python will find this series useful.

Update

^* I initially intended to do two practice projects but it seemed redundant so I settled on making the CRUD section the project.