Django - Mac development, environment hell_问答_开发者

I was trying to setup Django dev environment on Mac and arrived into a hell. It all started when trying to install PIL, which failed after trying 15 or so different recipes I found on blogs. So I wante开发者_如何学God to install the Python, this time 2.7, and reinstall setuptools, easy_install, pip from scratch.

After just installing Python 2.7, and easy_install with setuptools for 2.7, this all in turn created such a mess that is unbelievable. Different version of Python are installed everywhere, easy_install is installed everywhere and points randomly to different python hashbangs (sometimes to #!/usr/bin, #!/usr/local/, #!/Library/...)

Now I can't even do easy_install pip, which I always could. So I'm already in a hell and I haven't even attempted to install MySQL yet.

My question finally is did anyone bump into such problems, it would help enough to know that I'm not alone.

Second, would it be easier to set up the entire environment on Ubuntu than it is on a Mac?

Thirdly, is there any guide that can really clearly explain how to set up but also tear down the stack for Python development on a Mac?

It wouldn't hurt to run a VM with vagrant. This post should tell you more: http://stevelosh.com/blog/2011/06/django-advice/

Of course using virtualenv should also help alleviate some of these issues.

I've gone through the same hell 2 weeks ago :)

I needed to make working python 2.7 and virtualenv on OSX 10.6.8. You haven't mentioned virtualenv in your question but I strongly recommend it. That way you minimize amount of globally installed packages. Everything is... cleaner. My idea is to only have following things globally:

python (from brew)
pip (via easy_install)
virtualenv (via pip)
virtualenvwrapper (via pip)
other through either virtualenv or buildout

I've just checked and pip PIL installs fine within my virtualenv.

Here are notes from this battle (gist.github.com):

#NOTE: .pydistutils.cfg seems to be not compatible with brew install python
#areas I needed to clean before installation
#clean up ~/Library/Python
#clean up .local
brew install python
easy_install pip
pip install virtualenv
pip install virtualenvwrapper
mkdir $HOME/.virtualenvs

Example .bash_profile:

#homebrew
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:${PATH}

# homebrew python 2.7
export PATH="/usr/local/share/python:${PATH}"

#virtualenv wrapper
export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
source /usr/local/share/python/virtualenvwrapper.sh

Good luck!

Second, would it be easier to set up the entire environment on Ubuntu than it is on a Mac?

To answer this question (though I never used Mac though): I never had problems setting up a python environment for Django development on Ubuntu. Though in any case you should go with the built-in Python version if possible. Attempting to install any other Python versions usually ends up messy. Luckily with Ubuntu 11.04 the standard version is already 2.7.

I'm using django development environment on a MAC OS X 10.8 with python 2.7. I don't use virtualenv ore some other things.

With all the respect can say that there is NO ANY PROBLEMS to develop on a mac. Mac is a UNIX like system and you've probably seen that all tools for developers have MAC ports.

As for the setup mess. It's a good idea to use virtualenv. As for PIL installation. I needed to compile it with TrueType. As I'm in common with UNIX like environments it was not heavy task for me to compile PIL from sources using GCC (it's already installed on a MAC)... There are some mess with Django to setup virtualenv... There are certainly lots of articles to setup it on Google.

I use Eclipse and write all my PYTHONPATH variables there. You can forget installing everything like in Linux and try not to make anymore mess with installed tools. Try to read THIS article if you feel like you're ok to use Eclipse for your development on a MAC. It also has a recipe to avoid mess with installation of many copies of Python and other dev utils.

Yes I have had problems with MacOS. I think rather than trying to figure it out I just switched to Ubuntu. I use a mac with Ubuntu installed in VMware Fusion. I have developed on both and prefer the Ubuntu because I'm just more comfortable with installing packages and the file structure.

I love using the VM because I'm never scared of having to start over. I can get a whole new OS installed and get the packages with what I use in just a few hours. Not to mention with 6month rollouts I can do complete installs of new versions instead of updates.

Depending on your production environment, it may be beneficial to use an OS that is similar, if you can install a package on ubuntu desktop, you already know how to do it on ubuntu server.