After some hunting around I found a help article at Webfaction describing the process of sending mail from a script (with Python, nice! give it a thumbs up; those guys are great).  I could easily enough put some code like that into a function in a utility module to be called from various places, but it’s kind of ugly and repeats some data multiple times and requires a couple more imports.  On a development box I got Django’s handy send_mail function to work, but even with the described smtplib setup work on the webhost, the Django convenience was not going to fly.  But shortly into that Django article you see some setting parameters that are not part of the default django-admin-generated skeleton.  I tried setting these like so:

if platform.uname()[1].lower() == 'myserver.webfaction.com':
    EMAIL_HOST = 'smtp.webfaction.com'
    EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'my_user_name'
    EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = get_my_password()

And now I can simply send myself emails by making calls to send_mail, like this:

from django.core.mail import send_mail
...
send_mail("New beta user signed up!",
    "%s\n%s" % (email, text),
    "beta@mycompany.com", [ADMIN])

I’ll assume you’re on a Debian-based/derived system and have access to apt-get.  If not, you can probably install all of these by downloading individually or relying on easy_install/PyPI.

Python

These are the resources to get you familiar with the language, culture, and communities.  I personally like to start with books.  I’ve read many, but thanks to Python’s clean/simple design, only a couple are actually necessary to make you proficient.

Install: sudo apt-get install python python-ipython python-setuptools

• python -c 'import this' (Zen of Python)
• Python glossary
• Python tutorial
• Python Standard Library
• Python wiki
• PyPI
• Book: Python in a Nutshell (best Nutshell book ever written, regexes and libs coverage pretty comprehensive, but hoping for Py3k coverage soon!)
• Alternative free/open book: Dive Into Python
• Book: Python Cookbook (also online ASPN Cookbook)
• PEP 8 (style guide)
• Programming FAQs
• Editor configuration (vim: set ts=4 ai sw=4 et tw=72; research equivalents your favorite editor; emacs good alternative)
• ReStructuredText (ReST)
• Python mailing list
• Python IRC
• Find a Python user group (ours is Portland)
• The here/near future (Python 3)

Tools

If you only get one thing out of this article, let it be this: Use ipython to interactively discover the language and libraries. It’s the most powerful REPL of any language I’ve encountered, and is what really makes Python rise to the top for learnability.

Install: sudo apt-get python-ipython pylint pyflakes pychecker mercurial python-nose pydb python-coverage python-sphinx

• Interactive play: ipython (try: foo.<tab> and foo? and discover everything!)
• PyPI installables: easy_install
• Testing: nose
• Debugging: pydb (extended Python debugger)
• Lint/correctness: pylint, pyflakes, pychecker
• Code coverage: python-coverage

I’ve skipped some really useful tools that go beyond the essentials.  If you’re going to become a Python zealot, you’ll want most of your tools to be written in Python.  These might include Mercurial, Bazaar, Trac, MoinMoin, Sphinx.  We still need investigate the use of Selenium and Twill for web testing.  (We’re now using PostgreSQL for all our database work for several reasons, but one of the most significant is its REPL similar in introspective capability to ipython.)

Django

Our choice of Django was not an easy one, but after some time with Pylons and TurboGears (and even RoR), it was the winner.  It’s also arguably sort of the official Python web framework and does appear to have critical mass (AFAICT).  The Django website lists many of the following resources pretty clearly, but I have found these to be the most useful, and so worth enumerating here.

Install: sudo apt-get python-django python-psycopg2 python-sqlite3

• Django tutorial
• Django cheat sheet
• Book: The Django Book (especially chs 3-5,12)
• Django documentation
• Django Master Class presentation
• Django FAQs
• Django mailing list
• Testing Django page
  
• Long Django testing discussion
• Django Debug Toolbar
• Especially informative blog: B-List
• Most Django blogs

Please include any of your favorite resources for Python/Django newbies in the comments.