So I’m currently developing a site using Django, a lovely Python-based web framework designed for content-heavy sites like newspapers. To date, I’ve spent far more time trying to set up a proper development environment than I have actually coding anything; apparently my desire to “do things properly” has suddenly blown up into an obsession. One thing that quickly became clear in between setting up mod_python and using Subversion for the first time is that Windows 2000 is not exactly the best development OS for a couple of reasons, a major one being the lack of symbolic links. This makes keeping everything in a Subversion repository that much more difficult, so I figured, hey—forget Windows, I’ll just set up a dev server in Ubuntu instead!
Five hours later, the sun is up and I want to stab my eyes out with a rusty fork. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING? I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT LINUX! I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT VMWARE! WHY AM I SUCH A FUCKING TOOL?!?!? I keep forgetting to sudo commands, VMware’s bitchy about mouse focus, postgresql doesn’t want to install properly, nano won’t let me select text to copy (if it even has a copy function—all I see is an option to cut lines into a buffer), the apache files are scattered all over the fucking place, and oh did I mention that I still don’t have Django up and running yet? After five hours of wasted time and effort? In a tiny 800×600 window because every time I change the Ubuntu VM config to give me more resolution options, I lose them in the next reboot? At this rate I’ll need to find new hobbies to quench my latent masochism, like taking baths in boiling water and slamming my hands in doors. Maybe I’ll feed my eyeballs to a rabid dog while they’re still attached to my sockets.
Please, the next time you see me, punch me in the face and tell me never to touch Linux again. (At least, until tomorrow, when I bang my head against Apache configs for several more hours before I go binge drinking tomorrow night.)
8am update: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So when Django says “yeah, you should probably use the development branch,” they really mean “FUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOU!” But thanks to this guy and his backwards-compatible patch, I finally have a working Django. I still feel like punching myself in the face, though.
Update 2: The patch didn’t work, so I just rolled Django back to an older revision and everything works now. Phew!
Oh, and if you need help on Apache configs, mail me.
Comment by Victor — March 21, 2007 @ 8:00 am
Sorry you had trouble with the Django setup. Believe it or not, we Django developers want to make sure installation is as smooth as possible, but we can’t control every environment. We’re doing the best we can, though. Glad to hear you’re up and running.
Comment by Adrian Holovaty — March 21, 2007 @ 10:29 am
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you guys are doing your best to make Django easy to install. Really I chalk up my troubles to a complete lack of experience with pretty much every piece of software I was trying to install (up until now I’ve basically been doing development on a XAMPP server, which is as easy as these things get). My experience with a bash shell can be measured in hours, and I’ve never had to manage an Apache install on a Linux server before. Aside from the mysql change and the mod_python stuff (which admittedly took a very long time, but isn’t so much a Django issue anyways), very little time was spent configuring Django; it was everything else that was going wrong.
And in any case, development version is development version. I just got bit in the ass with the 4724 revision. Now that I’ve slept on it I feel better about the whole thing.
Comment by Wesley — March 21, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
[...] I don’t blame you if you don’t see the punchline coming: the version check patch is what caused my last stretch of problems when setting up my dev server. So it turns out I might want revision 4724 after all, for more proper Unicode handling with MySQL. It hasn’t been a problem yet (the db seems to be storing my smart quotes just fine even though they’re technically Unicode) but if it becomes a problem… er, do I cue Alanis Morrissette yet? Filed under: N3RDZ0R5 [ permalink ] [...]
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