Pin dependencies (especially black)

[lukaspie]

See comments in #1413 (comment) and #1536.

Black, flake8, and isort are not pinned in the requirement.txt file, but rather lower bound. This can lead to issues with the Github CI/CD (that internally runs make style), meaning that changes to the dev_tools code need to mixed in with changes to the definitions. The easiest solution is to pin these dependencies explicitly and update their versions in the requirement.txt from time to time.

[prjemian]

What about ruff instead of black, flake8, and isort? The web page describes advantages. One relevant advantage here is the ability to define expected behavior in a configuration file.

[prjemian]

Another interesting tool is pre-commit,

a framework for managing and maintaining multi-language pre-commit hooks.

Use of such tools can improve the code style consistency of changes pushed to GitHub.

[lukaspie]

We have been using ruff and its pre-commit hook across our codebase a lot, it's great. If you want, I can set it up here / sent you to the relevant setup that we are using. But, ruff is also actively being developed and new linting rules are added continously, so you have the same issue with pinning a version as with the other tools.