Using Python after a few years of Ruby

[Jason Scheirer]

On Apr 14, 12:01 am, blahemailb... at gmail.com wrote:
> Although I'm not 100% new to Python, most of my experience using high-
> level languages is with Ruby. I had a job doing Rails web development
> a little ways back and I really enjoyed it. At my current workplace
> though, we're looking at using Python and I'm trying to get back into
> the Python "groove" as it were.
>
> I've got plenty of materials to get me up to speed on the mechanics of
> the language, but I was wondering about the equivalent of some tools I
> was used to using in Ruby. If there's not anything that's a one-to-one
> equivalent I totally understand, I'm just looking for some pointers
> here to get me started. :)
>
> 1) Rake - is there an equivalent of Rake? I've seen a bit about SCons,
> and it looks really nice, but it seems geared towards being a Make
> replacement for C/C++ rather than something that's used to work with
> Python itself. Is there anything like a Python build tool? (Or do I
> even need something like that? I haven't worked with any large Python
> systems, just little things here and there.)

paver, virtualenv, zc.buildout

> 2) Gems - I've seen a bit about Eggs, but they don't seem to have
> anywhere near the official status gems do for Ruby. Are there any
> "package management" things like this for Python, or do you usually
> just grab the code you need as-is?

easy_install or pip. Just like gems.

> 3) Web frameworks - yeah, I realize there are tons of these, but are
> TurboGears, Django, and Zope still the big ones? I've seen a lot about
> Pylons, is that a separate framework or is it a ... well, frame that
> other things are built on? (TG seems to be related to Pylons at a
> glance?)

Pylons is sort of a large collection of software related to web
development. Turbogears 2.0 builds on it. There is also CherryPy
(Turbogears 1.0 uses that). Django's still the big dog though.

> 4) Unit Test frameworks - If there's a behavioral test suite like
> RSpec that's be awesome, but I'd be happy to settle for a good, solid
> unit testing system.

nose, py.test

> Thanks for any advice!