Turn an application or script into a shell command

Question

When I want to run my python applications from commandline (under ubuntu) I have to be in the directory where is the source code app.py and run the application with command
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Answer 1

A solution some what different from the ones mentioned here: Use an alias.

alias app='python /path/to/app.py'

Add the above line to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_login file (or preferably to ~/.bash_aliases if you are on Ubuntu). Then you can simply use your script as a command line tool with app.

No need to add a shebang (thereby modifying your existing Python script), no need to make the script executable and no need to change your PATH.