Overview
--------

This recipe lets you run ``zc.buildout.easy_install:develop`` on an arbitrary
collection of sources.  You will a develop link for each referenced source,
along with all the other great features offered by ``zc.recipe.egg.Scripts``.
It can also help with the boot strapping problem that can be encountered when
trying to re-use common part configurations from different  `buildout`'s.

`zc.buildout`_ provides a convenient wrapper around the setuptools develop
command. This wrapper can be used in a `zc.buildout` by referencing a source
directory in the develop attribute of the ``[buildout]`` section in your
``buildout.cfg`` file. All sources referenced by this attribute are `installed`
before any parts are processed. If you want to apply the develop command to the
content installed by one or more of the parts in your `buildout` then this 
recipe could be what you are after.

If you *need* the egg produced by your sources *during* zc.buildout's develop
step (Ie, *before* parts are installed), then this recipe may still be useful.

If you seed your buildout using the `find-links #egg trick`_, you will get a
built egg in your buildout based on the referenced url. The egg installed using
this trick does not track the repository revision. Hoever, for things that come
early in a buildout, this is not necessarily a bad thing. If you also pull in
the sources for that egg, using some other means, (ie something like
`rsb.sourcesvn`), then you can use this recipe to give precedence to the
source (.egg-linked) version for parts that appear later in the dependency
graph. If you want *both* a released egg and a linked egg available to different
parts be aware that you may need to separate your eggs and your develop-eggs
into different directories (`zc.buildout` defaults to this arrangement)

`zc.buildout` gives you complete control over which of your `default` parts are
installed into your `buildout` so it is relatively straight forward to set
things up for development against a mix of `realeased` egg distributions and
source checkouts, once you have a means to explicitly cast `setup develop` on
your sources.



.. _`zc.buildout`: http://www.zope.org/DevHome/Buildout
.. _setuptools: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools
.. _easy_install: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EasyInstall
.. _`find-links #egg trick`: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2007-January/007160.html