I have a bunch of zero dependency projects. You can get a lot done with the standard library and single file projects which you can run on most systems without needing to do anything except curl it down and run it since Python is available.
About 25% of the code is using argparse to parse commands and flags. With that said, I tend to prefer code that yields more lines for the sake of clarity. For example this could technically be 1 or 2 lines but I like each parameter being on its own line.
parser_edit.add_argument(
"-s",
"--sort",
default=False,
action="store_true",
help="Sort your profile and show a diff if anything changed",
)
Argparse is part of my problem with Python! I can never remember the weird ways it wants to collect all these attributes and features, so I'm always leafing through manual pages or googling for examples. Same for if I'm modifying existing Argparse code, I have no idea how to make it do what I want. It can do a lot for you, but it's a pain in the ass to use.
It's so much easier to write a simple usage() function that has all help text in one big block, and Getopt with a case block. Anyone can just look at it and edit it without ever looking up documentation.
One nice thing about argparse is it comes with a helper function for mutually exclusive groups that can be optional or required. For example you can have --hello OR --world but not both together.
For example here's a ~2k line Python project which is a command line finance income and expense tracker: https://github.com/nickjj/plutus/blob/main/src/plutus
It uses about a dozen stdlib modules.
About 25% of the code is using argparse to parse commands and flags. With that said, I tend to prefer code that yields more lines for the sake of clarity. For example this could technically be 1 or 2 lines but I like each parameter being on its own line.