# Projects that aren't meant to generate a wheel and \`pyproject.toml\`

**URL:** <https://discuss.python.org/t/projects-that-arent-meant-to-generate-a-wheel-and-pyproject-toml/29684>\
**Category:** Packaging\
**Created:** [July 14, 2023, 8:45pm UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/projects-that-arent-meant-to-generate-a-wheel-and-pyproject-toml/29684 "2023-07-14T20:45:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jamestwebber](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discuss.python.org/jamestwebber/32/12799_2.png) [@jamestwebber](https://discuss.python.org/u/jamestwebber)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2023, 1:14am UTC](https://discuss.python.org/t/projects-that-arent-meant-to-generate-a-wheel-and-pyproject-toml/29684/7 "2023-07-15T01:14:49Z")

</div>

> [@pf\_moore](#):
>
> I’m not averse to a proposal to adapt PEP 621 to cover the “standalone script/application” use case, but IMO it _would_ be a change and as such would probably need a new PEP to cover it.

Just as a data point: I do a ton of “standalone project” stuff in the context of scientific analyses, and the PEP 621 structure works pretty well for me. I don’t personally need an `--only-deps` flag, because I still need to install my _own_ project code. My workflow is:

- Create a repo for a project, with `pyproject.toml` and `requirements.txt`
- Write project-specific code as a package and upload to Github for sharing
- For analysis I’ll clone the repo\[1\], use `pip install -e` to install my code, and perform data analysis in jupyter notebooks, importing the code in the notebook as needed

Maybe this structure is already a level of complexity beyond what’s under discussion. And maybe I do it this way as a _result_ of how packages work now, and I’d do it differently if standalone scripts were supported more explicitly. I’m not sure.

I will say that this structure is way more organized than a lot of my colleagues 😂. I guess I partially agree with @abravalheri in that there’s no need to make it _easier_ to dump a bunch of spaghetti in a folder and call it a pyproject, but I do think that the use case of “organized code w/ project-like configuration, but not intended for a wheel” is pretty common in research. The reproducibility of the structure is a big feature there.

* * *

1. typically on a VM in the cloud

---

_[View the full topic](https://discuss.python.org/t/projects-that-arent-meant-to-generate-a-wheel-and-pyproject-toml/29684)._