__init__.py

# projectfoo/config/__init__.py

from os import path

ROOT_PATH = path.dirname(path.dirname(path.abspath(__file__)))


DEBUG = True
TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG

ADMINS = (
    ('Thomas Pelletier', 'thomas@pelletier.im'),
)

MANAGERS = ADMINS

TIME_ZONE = 'America/Chicago'
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

SITE_ID = 1
USE_I18N = False
USE_L10N = False
MEDIA_ROOT = ''
MEDIA_URL = ''
ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/media/'
SECRET_KEY = 'myawesomesecretkey'

TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
#     'django.template.loaders.eggs.Loader',
)
MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
)
ROOT_URLCONF = 'projectfoo.urls'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    '%s/templates' % ROOT_PATH,
)

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'projectfoo.killerapp',
)

development.py

# projectfoo/config/development.py

from os import path

DEBUG = True

ROOT_PATH = path.dirname(path.dirname(path.abspath(__file__)))

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': 'test-database.sqlite3',
    }
}

MEDIA_ROOT = '%s/site_media/' % ROOT_PATH
MEDIA_URL = '/site_media/'

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.console.EmailBackend'

# And so on...

production.py

# projectfoo/config/production.py

from os import path

DEBUG = False

ROOT_PATH = path.dirname(path.dirname(path.abspath(__file__)))

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
        'NAME': 'blah',
        # ...
    }
}

MEDIA_ROOT = '/var/data/projectfoo/media/'
MEDIA_URL = 'http://my-cdn.com/data/site_media/'

EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend'

# And so on...

settings.py

# projectfoo/settings.py

import os


# Set a default value for environements
default = 'development'
# Grab the current environement from the system environment variable named
# DJANGO_ENV
current_env = os.getenv('DJANGO_ENV', default=None)
# Print an alert if no value is found: better for debug
if current_env == None:
    print "No DJANGO_ENV defined. Falling back to '%s'." % default
    current_env = default
# Must match the config.(name) convention, so it must be lowercased and without
# dots in it. CURRENT_ENV is when you want to behave differently depending on
# which env you are running on.
CURRENT_ENV = current_env = current_env.lower()
if '.' in current_env:
    raise Exception('You configuration environement must not contain a dot.')
# Finally import the configuration
exec("from config import *") # This is the base configuration
try:
    exec("from config.%s import *" % current_env) # This is the specific
                                                  # configuration.
except ImportError:
    print "The module 'config.%s' was not found. Only the base configuration\
    has been imported." % current_env