Shiny Python Developer Experience

shiny
1

Hi everyone, I have been developing the largest R Shiny app I've ever made ( roughly 800 lines) and the project has gotten to a size where I feel like the development experience is starting to lack. I have done programming in a number of languages like Python, R, JavaScript/HTML, and Rust, and R has been the worst in terms of tooling and the convenience and user-friendliness of the language. At the same time, Python tooling and language features are known to be some of the most user-friendly.

Can you share the changes in the quality of your experience between developing Shiny in R vs. Python? I'm thinking of just doing my next project in Python so I can use a modern and battle tested debugger and LSP, but I wanted to see if others have done something similar before I take the plunge.

2

A few thoughts:

Firstly in your R app, are you using modules and have you got functions in your R/ directory? If not then that's definitely going to help your development experience by simplifying your UI and server functions.

Most of my experience in python is in scripting, but I have made one shiny app: GitHub - simon-smart88/gasbench and I don't think it was that different to R. I'd have thought that your use case (i.e. do you need to use specific R or python packages), your experience (i.e. dplyr vs pandas) and if applicable, who you are working with, would be more important in deciding which to use rather than tooling.

3

Thanks for the insights. I'll definitely need to get my functions into R/and learn more about modules too.

4

No problem. Check out Chapter 18 Functions | Mastering Shiny and Chapter 19 Shiny modules | Mastering Shiny if you want some resources.