Development Guidelines

GWELLS Development Guidelines

To ensure that future additions to the code base are continuously improving the overall code quality, please follow these guidelines:

Python

• Follow PEP-8 Style Guide for basic guidelines on style and organization. This includes using 4 spaces instead of tabs for indents, using upper case for class names (e.g. MyClassName()), and using lower case with underscores for functions and variables (e.g. my_function_name() and my_variable_name).
• Enable PEP-8 linting in your IDE.
• Further suggestions:
  • PEP-8 suggests a 79 character line limit, but that is difficult to work within. GitHub can display up to 110-120 characters per line for reviewing changes (depending on browser), so please wrap long lines before reaching this length.

Django

• In general, follow conventions in Django's official documentation or Two Scoops of Django 1.11 (a copy available in lab)
• Project-specific guidelines (common things that might come up working on GWELLS):
  • Model fields: blank=True, null=True - do not set both at once. Please set blank=True for CharFields instead of null=True.
  • Model ForeignKey relationship: on_delete - in general, use models.SET_NULL unless the table absolutely depends on the parent's existence.

Django unit tests

• Tests: to run Django tests, use python manage.py test -c nose.cfg. When submitting any new code or features, please include unit tests in your pull request.

Vue / JavaScript

• The Vue community tends to use the "Standard" style guide. Some of the most obvious differences between Standard and AirBNB are no semi-colons, and a space between function names and parentheses - e.g., function () { ... }. Running npm install in the frontend folder will automatically install a linter with Standard rules.
• Use single file components when it makes sense. For example, a modal that can be re-used on other pages, or clearly separated sections of a single page (header, footer etc).
• Run tests with npm run test or npm run watch (auto-watch files and run tests on files that you change)

Vue unit tests

• Vue unit tests use Jest and vue-test-utils. Refer to the current tests or the documentation for each for guidance on writing more.
• The general workflow for writing a test is to shallow render a component (render one component and its immediate child components only), then search for the tag or id's in the HTML (wrapper.find("p")) or inspect the Vue instance data (wrapper.vm.myVariable).