More about Buildout
According to the index page on the Python Package Index (PyPI), (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/zc.buildout/1.5.0b2), Buildout is a:
"System for managing development buildouts"
Since its inception, Buildout has grown to become an elaborate system for building software for both development and production use. You can use it to install a single Python package or a complex application.
Buildout does very little by itself; additional functionality is provided by add-ons called recipes. And with over 200 recipes available from the PyPI, you can use it to do just about anything.
Configuration file format
Buildout's configuration file format is based on the Windows INI-style definition, described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INI_file.
If you read the Wikipedia entry here, you will notice INI-style files are made up of parameters of the form name=value.
These parameters are separated by an equals sign (=), and can be grouped into sections of the form [section].
