Python friendly emacs

[Alex]

> I know that python comes with a .el file for emacs but I am unable to
> make emacs understand it.

What error messages is it giving?  Have you turned font-locking on?

> Also, I'd like emacs to default to python mode when it edits a file
> with the extension of .cgi

Put the following in your ~/.emacs file:

(setq auto-mode-alist
      (cons '("\\.cgi$" . python-mode) auto-mode-alist)) 

(autoload 'python-mode "python-mode")
(autoload 'py-shell    "python-mode")

Also, make sure that Emacs knows where to find python-mode:

(setq load-path (append '("directory containing python-mode")
                        load-path))

Alex.