Best project structure for multiple apps?

[Eric Floehr]

Hi!

I have an existing system that is somewhat unique and I am trying to
figure out the best organizational structure for it within Django. I
was wondering if anyone had any best practices or thoughts on how best
to structure this.

This is a system that currently does a lot of back-end processing, so
there would be a big need to use Django models as the interface into
the database. These python processes, run manually or on a cron,
modify/update/insert data into various tables in the database.

There are two (and eventually three) totally separate web applications,
with different domains that access these tables. Each application may
have a table or two it uses on its own, but the vast majority of tables
are shared between the applications, and the back-end processes.

Being new to Django, I'm not sure the best layout. Do I have one
project with two different applications for my two websites, with
separate settings files (or do I just need one settings file and have
django route based on the top-level domain name?). Where do all the
common table model classes go? A separate app, or outside the app
structure entirely? If outside the app structure entirely, what about
being able to "admin" certain tables (most tables won't need to be
"admin"able, but some it would be nice).

Any thoughts on how I would best organize this would be most
appreciated!

Thanks much,
Eric

[Eric Floehr]

I should mention that the back-end processes and web-apps have been
organically grown. The back-end processes and one web-app are python
and are fairly tightly coupled (they use the same home-grown model
classes), while the second web-app is currently Ruby on Rails. I'd
like to get everything in Python, using the same model classes, and
using django for the framework.