javascript dependencies in python project

Question

I\'m writing software that allows one to publish mathematical books as websites. It is based mostly on Python + Flask, but to deal with equations I\'m using MathJax. MathJax can

Answer 1

Using Node.js package.json would be the most optimal solution for dealing with JavaScript dependencies. As for executing executables from .py you can reference to this answer Running shell command from Python and capturing the output. Node dependencies are by default inside ./node_modules in the same directory as the location of your package.json file.

For installing new dependencies:

npm install --save npm-package-you-want-to-install

Once you have them prepared this command will have everything installed for you:

npm install

Node dependencies are definitely more elegant way of dealing with things since javascript is a constantly evolving world and it is much easier to take a look at a package.json than a lot of script tags / functions that simply invoke said scripts. If you want a automated system my suggestion would be to make a executable (.sh) which will run installment for both and you can use that in your future projects.

Answer 2

My question is: what is the best practice of dealing with such heterogenous dependencies in Python?

In the case of Node dependencies, I would include a package.json file in the directory which specifies the Node dependencies needed. For other languages/package managers, I would also use whatever the conventional way of specifying dependencies is (e.g. add a Gemfile for Ruby dependencies).

Another common example of this that comes up with Python/Flask is using the Bower package manager for static frontend dependencies. In that case, the dependencies are specified in the bower.json file and are usually pulled into a bower folder in Flask's static directory.

I can just put all the javascript sources I need into my distribution itself, but maybe there's a better way to do it?

Once you've got the package.json with the dependencies specified, you can fetch and install all the Node dependencies needed by running npm install which, in my opinion, is a more elegant solution than including the javascript sources with the project.

Now that you've got multiple package managers (e.g. maybe you're using pip for the Python dependencies in addition to npm for the Node dependencies), you might want to make a Makefile or some deployment/build script to fetch/install using all of them (for example, if I were using Travis CI, I would update my .travis.yml to call npm install in addition to pip install -r).

Answer 3

I recommend to use webpack Webpack.js not Bowerjs. NPM and his package.json are very good for dependency updates but referencing libraries from node_modules is a little embarrasing.