Tonight I was about to start yet another project using the Django framework. There are a number of tasks that are a bit repetitive when starting a Django project such as setting up user registration. It's really not too bad though. However, I heard about a project called Pinax a while ago which aims to provide a base for starting a new website using Django.

I'm not giving a full breakdown of Pinax because I've only been checking it out for about one hour. But I do have some thoughts.

It took around 15 minutes to go to the Pinax website, read the home page to get a gist of what the project is all about, download the latest release, and create a website based on one of the Pinax projects, which basically means it is a full-fledged website with quite a few features. So, that's pretty cool.

A Pinax project? What's that? From what I observed, Pinax basically provides a bunch of common websites (e.g. a blog or a wiki) that are implemented using the Django framework. To create a new website, you choose which of the provided projects your website will be most like and you clone it. You're basically forking a full open-source website instead of starting one from scratch. This is not comparable to Joomla or Drupal. You're still pretty much building a website yourself and you have full control. You just get a head start.

How cool is that? Well, if the website you want to build is pretty similar to one of the provided projects, then it's friggin' sweet. You might tweak a few things, re-skin the site and you're all done. However, my first thought was that I wished the framework was more pluggable. I don't want to just fork a project and then be on my own forever more. I want to install a plugin and have a clean upgrade path when important upgrades are made to the plugin. I want to be able to easily provide OpenID support, but I don't want a bunch of other apps along with it that I don't care about. I want more control and less cruft.

All in all, Pinax is pretty cool and I can't help but wonder if some of my concerns might be resolved as I learn more about Pinax.