[Django]-How to organize a webapp?

I would have a development copy which would be a checkout from my repository. On the live site I would have exports (as opposed to checkouts) of tagged versions and I would name the directory these exports are in with the tag name “project-v1.4.5” for example. I would then have a symlink to point to the currently active tag. This allows you to go back to an older version a lot more easily if you find problems after going live with a new tag.

If you’re using SVN I recommend you read (http://svnbook.red-bean.com/) the SVN book’s sections on Fundamental Concepts and Tags (in the Branching and Merging chapter).

SVN allows you to ignore files you don’t want committing http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn.advanced.props.special.ignore.html

with git you can set up a private branch and have selected files persist in that branch only (for example – to maintain your local configs and templates). I’ve asked a similar question before. With this setup updating your app and pushing your changes to the public branch is trivial.