I am trying to grasp a bit more of buildout with this tutorial, but unlike a tutorial, it seems like a cut and paste of presentation slides. I don't have a really clear idea of what the purpose of buildout is, and how it positions itself with scons and setuptools. Would you be so kind to provide details on these issues?
Thanks!
The most useful resource that I found so far are the videos from pycon 2009 on Setuptools, Distutils and Buildout.
Eggs and Buildout Deployment in Python - Part 1
Eggs and Buildout Deployment in Python - Part 2
Eggs and Buildout Deployment in Python - Part 3
Check it out.
Using buildout.org might be a good way for you to learn more about buildout.
I quite like the Plone Buildout Tutorial.
It gives a reasonable overview of how it all works and the ways in which you can extend a simple buildout file.
Here is the new link to Plone Buildout Tutorial.