You know who uses the (Plone) Collective Python buildout?
You know who uses the (Plone) Collective Python buildout? Me neither, because we don't have any good statistics on its use (that I know of). If it were a Python package, we could at least count the number of times it has been downloaded.
You know who should use it? Everyone.
[dramatic pause…]
OK maybe not everyone, but at least everyone that regularly develops with multiple versions of Python. Here's why.
Actively maintained
Check out the log. It has been going strong for over 3 years.
If I recall correctly, it was born out of the frustration¹ of having to compile Python on Mac OS X Leopard. Python never compiles correctly on new versions of OS X (which is a complete mystery to me given that Apple ships with Python, don't they think people will want to compile it?).
Easy to install
Got Subversion? Then you can haz the Collective Python buildout². You will also need to bootstrap it with whatever Python version you happen to have laying around. I won't go into detail about this; but suffice it to say depending on your OS, one of the following or something like it should work:
$ aptitude install python2.5
Or:
$ brew install python
If you are on Windows, give up (unless you have a Microsoft C compiler). Sorry.
Now, check out the code from the repository (if you are a member of the Collective and may potentially contribute something back, make sure you use https):
$ svn co http://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/buildout/python
Next, bootstrap and run the buildout:
$ cd python $ python bootstrap.py -d $ bin/buildout
That's it. The buildout should go merrily on it's way compiling Python 2.4 through 3.2. When it finishes, you can install it in /opt (or wherever you like) with the following command (you might need sudo):
$ bin/install-links
Then you should see:
$ /bin/ls -1 /opt/local/bin easy_install-2.4 easy_install-2.5 easy_install-2.6 easy_install-2.7 easy_install-3.2 pip-2.4 pip-2.5 pip-2.6 pip-2.7 pip-3.2 python2.4 python2.5 python2.6 python2.7 python3.2 virtualenv-2.4 virtualenv-2.5 virtualenv-2.6 virtualenv-2.7 virtualenv-3.2
Easy to configure
Now you can add /opt/local/bin to your environment PATH variable. This will make it easy to choose a particular Python, PIP, or Virtualenv at your leisure.
Unfortunately, if you pip install something, it will end up in the checkout instead of /opt/local/bin.
To get around this, I usually pick one Python for daily use, and add its bin directory to my environment PATH variable:
$ echo $PATH | tr ':' 'n' /sbin /usr/sbin /usr/local/bin /opt/local/bin /Users/aclark/Developer/collective/python/python-2.7/bin /usr/bin /bin /sbin /usr/X11/bin
After various pip installs, my 2.7 bin directory contains the usual tools of the trade:
$ /bin/ls -1 /Users/aclark/Developer/collective/python/ python-2.7/bin __dotcloud_git_ssh activate activate.csh activate.fish activate_this.py bfg2pyramid checkoutmanager cloudservers dotcloud easy_install easy_install-2.7 eye flake8 fsdump fsoids fsrefs fstail hg mako-render mkrelease paster pilconvert.py pildriver.py pilfile.py pilfont.py pilprint.py pip pip-2.7 playerpiano pygmentize python python2.7 recorderpiano repozo rfc2397 rst2html.py rst2latex.py rst2man.py rst2newlatex.py rst2odt.py rst2odt_prepstyles.py rst2pseudoxml.py rst2s5.py rst2xml.py rstpep2html.py runzeo sphinx-autogen sphinx-build sphinx-quickstart vanity zconfig zconfig_schema2html zdaemon zeoctl zeopack zeopasswd
Wrap it up, I'll take it
That's it! There is not too much more to say, other than I hope you find this post useful and will consider using the Collective Python buildout.
Of course, comments are always welcome.