managing django local and site settings with multiple developers?

Question

After looking around I have come up with the following code this seems to work well I was wondering what others have come up with and feedback would be great.

settings/init.py

import sys
import socket

# try to import settings file based on machine name.
try:
    settings = sys.modules[__name__]
    host_settings_module_name = '%s' % (socket.gethostname().replace('.', '_'))
    host_settings = __import__(host_settings_module_name, globals(), locals(), ['*'], -1)
    # Merge imported settings over django settings
    for key in host_settings.__dict__.keys():
        if key.startswith('_'): continue #skip privates and __internals__
        settings.__dict__[key] = host_settings.__dict__[key]

except Exception, e:
    print e
    from settings.site import *

settings/base.py

BASE = 1
SITE = 1
LOCAL = 1

settings/site.py //project specific

from settings.base import *
SITE = 2
LOCAL = 2

settings/machine_name_local.py //machine specific settings for developers or host server

from settings.site import *
LOCAL = 3

Answer 1

I think that while your code probably works, it's unnecessarily complicated. Complicated code is rarely a good thing because it's hard to debug, and your settings module in the last place you want to introduce errors in your Django project.

It's easier to have a settings.py file, with all settings for the production server plus settings common to all development machines and have a local_settings.py imported at the bottom of it. The local_settings.py would then be where the developers add settings specific to their machines.

settings.py:

# all settings for the production server, 
# and settings common to all development machines eg. 
# INSTALLED_APPS, TEMPLATE_DIRS, MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES etc.

# Import local_settings at the very bottom of the file
# Use try|except block since we won't have this on the production server, 
# only on dev machines
try:
    from local_settings import *
except ImportError:
    pass

local_settings.py

# settings specific to the dev machine
# eg DATABASES, MEDIA_ROOT, etc
# You can completely override settings in settings.py 
# or even modify them eg:

from settings import INSTALLED_APPS, MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES # Due to how python imports work, this won't cause a circular import error

INSTALLED_APPS += ("debug_toolbar",)
MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES += ('debug_toolbar.middleware.DebugToolbarMiddleware',)

Just remember not to upload the local_settings.py on the production server, and if you are using a VCS, to configure it such that the local_settings.py file is ignored.