making apps, making webs.

Here is an example buildout project that uses numpy: https://launchpad.net/numpybuildout/ If you have bazaar, you can check it out like so: cd /tmp/ bzr branch lp:numpybuildout cd numpybuildout/trunk/ To use distribute instead of setuptools use the -d flag of bootstrap.py. python bootstrap.py -d ./bin/buildout ./bin/py >>> import numpy >>> numpy.__file__ '/tmp/numpybuildout/trunk/eggs/numpy-1.4.0-py2.6-linux-i686.egg/numpy/__init__.pyc' There you have it, a simple project that can download and build numpy off of the python package index and install it in it's own private directory for use. update: It was broken for python2.6 and numpy 1.3. However it works again with numpy 1.4

This post is a review, a tutorial, and a howto - for and about buildout - a software development tool for the python language. This document aims to answer the question... " buildout? WTF? ". In short: buildout automates python project building. Buildout does everything needed to get your application in a state for running in its own sandbox. Super quick start instructions for using buildout... get the source from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/zc.buildout Make a new directory for your project, then copy the bootstrap/bootstrap.py file out of the zc.buildout source into your new project directory create a "buildout.cfg" file to go with the bootstrap.py file. Here is a simple one for your package called "YOURPACKAGENAME": [buildout] parts = test py develop = . [test] recipe = zc.recipe.testrunner eggs = YOURPACKAGENAME Run "python bootstrap.py" in your empty project directory(with the buildout.cfg file in there).  This will get buildout locally int...