Lately, I have been digging into Python. I was a (reluctant) convert to Python back in 2006 or so. I disliked the strict formatting and the idea of learning a new language (what's wrong with js?). Now, however, I find myself enjoying it thoroughly and hungry to know more about the language and ready to use if for some major projects.

I'm planning on writing up a longer description of how I'm setting up my system but here are the cliff notes:

Python
I recently installed Ubuntu 12.04.1 with Python 2.7.3 on it by default. I plan to start testing/modifying code for compatibility with Python 3 but will have to use the next item to ease that development headache.

virtualenv, virtualenvwrapper and pythonbrew
Ran into a big problem installing Python 2.7.3 in pythonbrew, did several searches and eventually found this: https://github.com/utahta/pythonbrew/issues/65 - Basically, I just needed a bunch of extra dependencies installed to get all the modules in Python built.

I'm still having a little trouble using pythonbrew in conjunction with virtualenv. I'm considering using pythonbrew to *just* manage downloading, building and installing different versions of Python and using virtualenv stand-alone (not the integrated venv command in pythonbrew) to create the sandboxes so I have a little better control. [ed: just gave the separated approach a try and it seems to work great]

Eclipse + pydev ~= Aptana

I'm new to the Eclipse IDE although it's been around for awhile. Using it is the first time I've had Python debugging available to me and it's awesome. I can't wait to get it fired up with django or flask and see what it can do.

git
I'm pretty much a convert these days, although I still feel a little lost in the system. I'm getting a bit of a pattern down but forget to pull/rebase daily. I was hoping to just the Egit Eclipse plugin with Aptana but it needed a more recent version of Eclipse. I may try installing Eclipse and the pydev plugin and see if I can get that combo working with Egit. I have both github and bitbucket accounts and have been using bitbucket more lately, might bounce back to github though.

There is more to come as I tighten up my development patterns and add things like django, flask, tastypie and I'm sure lots more to the mix. A dedicated (i.e. non-blogpost page) is probably warranted so that all the details can be laid out in full.