readme flake8 and reqs

Author: ltsaprounis

README.md

@@ -23,12 +23,35 @@ You can activate the virtual environment with `source .venv/bin/activate`.
 To enable the new venv in jupyter notebooks follow the instructions here:  
 https://janakiev.com/blog/jupyter-virtual-envs/
 
+link to the venv documentation:  
+https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html
+
+Alternatives to venv are conda environments but there are some big differences between the 2: 
+https://conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/tasks/manage-environments.html
 
 ## requirements.txt
-*[insert description]*
+Requirements files specify the dependencies of the project for other packages.  
+How the requirements are distributed across directories and files varries.  
+For this project we have 3 files where the requirements are stored: 
+* [requirements.dev.txt](requirements.dev.txt) has the dependencies anything that is necessary for the developer but not the user of the package (e.g. testing & linting)
+* [docs/requirements.txt](docs/requirements.txt) has the dependencies for building the documentation.
+* [setup.py](setup.py) has the **examplepackage** dependencies as part of the `install_requires` parameter of the `setup` function. More info in the dedicated section below.  
+
+The command `pip installs -r requirements.txt` install requirements from the specified file.
+
+Alternatives to using requirements.txt files are conda enviroment yaml files (if you choose to use a conda env that is): 
+https://conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/tasks/manage-environments.html
 
 ## flake8
-*[insert description]*
+Quotting the the [flake8 documentation](https://flake8.pycqa.org/en/latest/manpage.html) directly:  
+*flake8 is a command-line utility for enforcing style consistency across Python projects. By default it includes lint checks provided by the PyFlakes project, PEP-0008 inspired style checks provided by the PyCodeStyle project, and McCabe complexity checking provided by the McCabe project. It will also run third-party extensions if they are found and installed.*
+
+In summary, flake8 checks if the code is uggly according to [PEP8](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/).
+flake8 is part of the requirements.dev.txt file and can be installed with pip.
+To run a flake8 check you simply execute the command: 
+`flake8 examplepackage` *or any other dir that contains python files* 
+
+You can configure flake8 by adding a section for flake8 in the setup.cfg[setup.cfg] file. For example you can choose to instruct flake8 to ignore certain errors or change the default line length.
 
 ## black
 *[insert description]*
@@ -39,6 +62,9 @@ https://janakiev.com/blog/jupyter-virtual-envs/
 ## setup.py
 *[insert description]*
 
+## setup.cfg
+*[insert description]*
+
 ## Installing a package in Development mode
 *[insert description]*
 
@@ -56,5 +82,6 @@ https://janakiev.com/blog/jupyter-virtual-envs/
 
 ## TO-DOs:
 - [ ] Descriptions for each component
-- [ ] Add documentation using sphynx
+- [X] Add documentation using sphynx
 - [ ] Add branch protection rules
+- [ ] Add a Makefile for ease of use