Python for Entrepreneurs Transcripts
Chapter: Appendix: Python language concepts
Lecture: Concept: Python package index

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0:01 You'll hear it frequently said that Python is an ecosystem
0:06 or a language that comes with batteries included, and what that means is you don't have to start with a little bit of Python
0:10 and pull in a bunch of different pieces from here and there
0:13 and implement your own version of this algorithm or that feature.
0:17 Oftentimes, the things you need are built already into Python.
0:21 You should think this batteries included is kind of like an onion with many layers,
0:25 so at the core, the language itself is quite functional and does many things for us,
0:31 the next shell out is the standard library,
0:35 and in the standard library we have file io, regular expressions,
0:39 HTTP capabilities, things like that.
0:42 In the next shell outside of that are all of the packages
0:45 and external projects written for and in Python,
0:49 so for example when we want to add credit card capabilities to our website,
0:52 we are going to reach out and grab the stripe Python package.
0:56 The web framework we are using itself, is built around many packages,
0:59 centered around Pyramid, the database access layer is SQLAlchemy.
1:03 Everything I just named does not come included in Python,
1:06 but is in the broader ecosystem.
1:09 If it's in the broader ecosystem and it is a package or library for Python developers to use,
1:13 chances are extremely high you will find it in this place called
1:16 the Python Package Index, which you can find at pypi.org.
1:20 Notice that there are over 88 thousand packages at PyPi.
1:24 This means, you can go on and type something in that search box,
1:28 and there is a very good chance that what you are looking for
1:31 will return a bunch of results that you can then grab one of them,
1:35 install into your environment and then use in your project.
1:38 So here is what you do- when you think you need some piece of functionality or
1:42 some library, before you go to start and write that yourself,
1:46 do yourself a favor and do a few searches at pypi.org,
1:49 and see if there is already a really great open source project
1:52 or package that supports it.