This is a little out of date. Be sure to check the Heroku docs for the latest and greatest.

How to start a Django project in 2012

First, warm up your system.

$ easy_install pip (may need sudo)
$ pip install virtualenv (may need sudo)
$ pip install django (may need sudo)
$ brew install postgresql

Then be sure to follow the instructions for finishing the postres setup.

Start a project.

$ django-admin.py startproject [myproject]
$ cd !$

Setup virtualenv and start it up.

$ virtualenv --no-site-packages ve
$ source ve/bin/activate

(ve for virtualenv. Isn't that nice and terse? You can call it whatever you want.)

Install some things into your virtualenv.

$ pip install Django psycopg2 south dj-database-url

Now load the exact version into a requirements.txt file.

$ pip freeze > requirements.txt

(psycopg2 is a PostgreSQL adapter for Python.)

Put south in your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py.

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'south',
    ...

Make .manage.py executable (so you don't have to type python manage.py ... all the time).

$ chmod +x manage.py

Don't forget to add ve to your .gitignore file.

Create a database for local use.

createdb [whatever]

Add the following to the end of your settings.py file:

import dj_database_url
DATABASES = {'default': dj_database_url.config(default='postgres://localhost/[whatever]')}

If you want to sync your local database with Heroku, see this post.

Now go make something awesome.

$ heroku create
$ git push heroku master
$ heroku run ./manage.py syncdb
$ heroku open

Whenever you work on your project, you'll want to activate your virtualenv:

$ source ve/bin/activate

Then load any new requirements:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Sync and/or migrate your database:

$ ./manage.py syncdb
$ ./manage.py migrate [appname]

Finally, fire up your server:

$ ./manage.py runserver