[IPython-dev] IPython.config, HasTraits, Traitlets as an independent library?

Robert McGbibbon rmcgibbo at gmail.com
Mon Apr 15 21:17:12 EDT 2013


Hey,

I've become convinced that IPython's traits-based configuration system 
is awesome, and really useful for other
projects that have a command line app that needs to be configured, 
either with command line flags or a config file. I really like how it 
lets me keep my apps DRY, by automatically exposing a traitlet as a 
configurable command line option without having to repeat the 
docstring/helptext, and how you basically get file based configuration 
in addition to command line configuration basically for free.

Are others using the IPython config system outside of the IPython 
codebase itself? There's not a lot of documentation, but I think it 
really beats systems like the cement framework.

I'm wondering if it makes sense to think about the config system as a 
modular framework to be used by other packages as well. The logical 
extension of that would be to spin it off as another repo/project that 
IPython depended on, but that's a little premature. More realistic would 
be to write up maybe some documentation on how to use the config system 
in your own app.

-Robert



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