Hitchhiker's Guide to Python: Python best practices guide
/python-guide
Hitchhiker's Guide to Python packages practical setup and workflow advice into one place instead of leaving you to hunt it down piecemeal. The finished chapters are genuinely useful — the packaging and testing notes read like something written by someone who has shipped real projects — but large stretches are still marked as work in progress, so treat this as a companion to the official docs, not a replacement for them.
What is the Hitchhiker's Guide to Python?
Hitchhiker's Guide to Python is a community-maintained reference — hosted as reStructuredText in this repo and published at docs.python-guide.org — that walks through installing Python, choosing packaging tools, and picking libraries for common tasks. The README calls it an opinionated guide built for both novice and expert developers who want daily-use advice, not a step-by-step course.
What topics does the guide cover?
- ✓Platform- and version-specific installation instructions for Python itself
- ✓Packaging and freezing tools named directly: Py2app, Py2exe, bbfreeze, and PyInstaller
- ✓Pip and virtualenv guidance for isolating project dependencies
- ✓A rundown of the scientific stack — Numpy, SciPy, statpy, pyplot, and matplotlib
- ✓Fabric coverage for remote deployment tasks
- ✓An 'exhaustive' module-recommendation list grouped by topic, per the README's own description
- ✓Server configuration notes for running various Python web frameworks
- ✓A short section on bridging Mercurial (hg) commands into a Git workflow
Strengths
- ✓Groups module recommendations by purpose instead of just linking to a list, so you get a 'use this for that job' answer.
- ✓Covers unglamorous parts of Python work — server configs, testing setup, documentation habits — that many how-tos skip.
- ✓Available in two forms: raw reStructuredText in this repo, or an almost up-to-date HTML build at docs.python-guide.org.
- ✓Free to read, no signup or paywall.
What to watch out for before you start
- △The README itself calls the project 'Work in progress' and says it's under heavy development, so some chapters read thin or unfinished.
- △No license is listed in the repo's own metadata, so check docs.python-guide.org before reusing any of the text elsewhere.
- △Some named tools are dated — Fabric and bbfreeze aren't what most Python developers reach for on a new project today.
- △It's prose, not a runnable project. Don't expect executable examples or a CLI you can pip install.
Other Python best practices resources
Frequently asked questions
Hitchhiker's Guide to Python covers Python installation across platforms, packaging tools like Pip and PyInstaller, virtualenv, the Numpy/SciPy/matplotlib stack, Fabric-based deployment, module recommendations by purpose, web server configuration, and testing with Jenkins and tox.
Hitchhiker's Guide to Python is free to read, with the full text published at docs.python-guide.org and no signup, subscription, or paywall involved. The source is also open in this GitHub repository if you'd rather read the raw reStructuredText files directly.
The README doesn't state a specific Python version to target — it only says the guide covers platform- and version-specific installation instructions. Check the live docs at docs.python-guide.org for current version guidance, since this repo's metadata doesn't specify one.
The README labels Hitchhiker's Guide to Python 'Work in progress' and says it's under heavy development, explicitly asking for contributor help because there's a lot of work left. That note is the clearest signal in the repo about its current maintenance state.
PEP 8 is a narrow style-and-formatting specification, while Hitchhiker's Guide to Python is a broader handbook covering installation, packaging, module choices, server setup, and testing. Think of PEP 8 as one chapter's worth of material folded into this guide's much wider scope.
The README notes Hitchhiker's Guide to Python was created to give a best-practice handbook for daily installation, configuration, and usage, serving newcomers and veteran Python developers.
Best use cases
- •Onboarding a new Python developer who needs one document to point at for setup, packaging, and testing conventions
- •Picking between competing libraries or packaging tools for a task without reading five different tutorials
- •Setting up a new Windows or Mac dev machine and wanting platform-specific installation notes in one place
- •Writing internal team documentation standards and wanting a reference point for what 'good' looks like
Who should try it — and who should skip
Try Hitchhiker's Guide to Python if you're new to the language and want one document that explains installation, packaging, and testing choices instead of ten separate blog posts, or if you lead a team and want something to point junior developers at. Skip it if you need actively current guidance on modern tooling — the README's own 'work in progress' notice means some sections may lag behind today's Python packaging ecosystem, so cross-check anything version-specific against the live docs at docs.python-guide.org.
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