If you use Python you should be using virtualenv. If you’re using virtualenv you should be using virtualenvwrapper.
The gist is that virtualenv creates clean, custom Python installations where you can muck up the installed extensions without messing up the global system wide install. virtualenvwrapper better integrates these virtual environments with your shell command line, among other things. Ultimately you can easily flow between various “versions” of Python with all sorts of weird extensions, without wrecking a default installation. And virtualenvwrapper is pluggable. So if you don’t like how it works, or want something it doesn’t do, you can fix it.
Doug Hellman, virtualenvwrapper‘s author, recently cut loose a major new release. Go get it.
That is all!