This is an indispensable tool for my Django development.

Highlights:

* shell_plus - will open a Python shell with your models from the project already imported.

* runserver_plus - http://code.google.com/p/django-command-extensions/wiki/RunS... is a great debugging tool. It will give you an Ajax Python shell where the error occurred.

* dumpscript - is the most pythonic way to make backups of your database. "Generates a Python script that will repopulate the database using objects"

If you are using Django, use this project.

A screencast on the subject:

http://ericholscher.com/blog/2008/sep/12/screencast-django-c...

You can add these kind of command extensions to your python projects by using http://pythonpaste.org/

Pylons, repoze.bfg etc already use paste for generating project templates, custom shell and runserver.

It is quite easy to add this to any python project.

An example: http://www.themeswiki.org/Creating_template_for_Python_packa...

Shell_plus is just what I was looking for. Shell driven coding really speeds up my development, and this helps a lot by relieving me of copying and pasting many imports every time I run a new shell.

I discovered this via pinax and love it. It's trivial to setup for django users.