Django - Mac OSX Workflow - Questions on efficient development methodologies

Question

I am going to outline my workflow and I would like some suggestions on how to improve the efficiency of this. It seems right now a bit cumbersome and repetitive (something I ha

Answer 1

OK, I'll bite :-) Here's what I use:

• MAMP. You get a fully functional Apache + MySQL + PHP + phpMyAdmin stack to manage the web and DB layers. It's great for apps that go beyond basic SQLite. Basic version is free but I went ahead and popped for Pro because I use it so much and wanted to support the devs. A good way to test and make sure everything works is start with the Django test server, then deploy and test under MAMP on your own machine, and finally push it out to your deployment site. (You could try to automate the process with something like Fabric).

• Eclipse + PyDev + PyDev extensions. Once configured properly you get Python code completion, a nice development environment, and full debugging. You can configure it so it runs the Django test server for you and you can set breakpoints on any line in Django source or your own code. The thing I like about Eclipse is that once you get used to the environment, you can also it for C/C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, and Flex coding.

• Aptana for Eclipse. It helps when developing AJAX front-ends and editing Django templates to have a decent Javascript + HTML editor/debugger.

• TextMate. I've created a TextMate project that includes all of Django sources and saved it in the Django source directory. This way, I can quickly do project searches through Django source and single-click open the source file. You can also set it up so you can go back and forth between Eclipse and TextMate editors and have them auto-reload.

• A decent MySQL or SQLite editor. phpMySQLAdmin is OK but sometimes it's good to have a standalone tool. SequelPro (formerly CocoaMySQL) and Navicat are all pretty good for MySQL. One advantage is that once your app is deployed, you can use these tools to remotely access the deployment DB server and tweak it from your desktop. On the SQLite side SQLiteManager and Base are good commercial tools, as is the freebie FireFox SQLite Manager. At the very least you can watch what Django's doing under the hood.

• I use Subversion for version control mostly because it runs on a standalone Mac Mini which saves to a Drobo RAID array plus auto-backups everything to a couple other external drives. This on top of Time Machine (yes, I'm paranoid :-) I used to use Eclipse's SVN support but now I'm a big fan of Versions. At some point when I can figure out a good mirroring scheme I'll switch to Mercurial, Git, or Bazaar, but for now this works pretty well.

• Terminal plus a bunch of shell scripts. Everyone has their own version of this. I'm pretty lazy when it comes to these things so I set up a bunch of bash shortcuts to help speed up repetitive Django admin tasks. I posted these up a while back.

Most of these can be had for free or a moderate fee (< $100). But if I had to pick the 'must have' items for Django development on the Mac, it would be Eclipse and PyDev.

I'm sure there are some I've missed. Be great to hear what tools everyone else is using.