Those of you who have been following me on Twitter will know that I've recently decided to focus on learning Python, and looking into python-based web frameworks like django and pylons. As I've been reading through the various materials about python, it strikes me that its a very clean language, and more importantly, multi-purpose. Generally my development is done in either PHP or C#, and whilst the same can be said C#, PHP has always been all about the web. Of course, it can do a lot more than that, but first and foremost it solves the problem of building web applications. To this end, I have never used it for general shell/admin duties such as deploying sites - this job has fallen me using manual deployment in the past and Capistrano more recently.

Whilst I like the solution provided by Capistrano, its always seemed a little bit strange to use a Ruby-based tool to deploy sites which are never anything to do with ruby. Yes - I'm picky. However, since I will be heading further into the world of python, I thought now is as good a time as any to see if there is a python-based alternative. The answer is yes - Fabric