[Tutor] What does it mean to create separate applications?

[Dave Angel]

Kristina Ambert wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm new to python and frankly new to programming. This is my first question
> post, so I hope everyone could bear with me.
> I'm working on a small database application which basically handles a store
> inventory, it's my internship project for the semester. My boss asked me to
> break down each form (e.g. product information entry, store inventory list)
> into separate small applications. I'm having a hard time understanding what
> she means by this. Does it mean each form is it's separate python file? If
> that's the case, the things I have already is that way.
> I guess my question basically is, what does it mean for something to be
> called an application or a standalone application? I've searched the
> internet for some answers but I just keep getting more confused.
>
> Thanks for any pointers anyone can give me!
>
> Best,
> Krissy
>
>   
An application is something the end-user can run by itself.  Typically, 
a python application is a script dedicated to one purpose, that may 
import other python modules that are more general purpose, and those may 
be shared between applications.

At its simplest, such a script parses the command line arguments 
(sys.argv) does some initialization, and invokes some features in the 
shared code of those imports.

A standalone application is one that's ready to install and use on an 
arbitrary machine, without having much in the way of external 
dependencies.  But that's very dependent on the customer base you're 
aiming at.  For example, python.exe (and all its libraries ) is a 
dependency, but a particular company may already assume every machine 
has a particular version of Python installed and ready to go.

Now, different levels of management may have different notions of what 
an application is.  For example, to some people, maybe an application is 
something that can be run from a Windows Desktop shortcut, with all 
other interactions being prompted by the program itself.  So they want 
to see separate shortcuts for "product entry", "store inventory" etc.   
Now if I were doing these, they might all invoke the same Python script, 
but pass parameters choosing what subset of features are needed.   As 
long as "installation" includes initializing these shortcuts, the 
manager is happy.

DaveA