The first and most important step of setting up a python development environment is setting up a virtual environment for everything you do and your install tools.

Setup install and virtual environment tools

pip and distribute are python installer tools.
virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper are virtual environment tools.

1. Install pip and distribute.

   sudo easy_install pip
   curl -O http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
   sudo python ./distribute_setup.py
   rm ./distribute_setup.py
   

2. Install virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper.

   sudo pip install virtualenv
   sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper
   

3. Add source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh to ~/.bash_profile

   echo source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh >> ~/.bash_profile
   source .bash_profile
   

By default, your virtual environments will be stored in ~/.virtualenvs/. Customize by setting a path to the WORKON_HOME environment variable.

Starting a new python project

Anything you work on or install should be done through a virtual environment created for your project. Virtual environments an be created and deleted at will without effecting another project.

From now on, you should only pip install when you have a virtualenv active.

Basic Commands

Full documentation is available on readthedocs.org.

mkvirtualenv my_project    # create new project
workon my_project          # switch projects
deactivate my_project      # return to system python
rmvirtualenv my_project    # remove project
cdsitepackages             # cd to python site-packages
lssitepackages             # ls python site-packages