I'd say it's one of the biggest barriers to entry out there. Getting a dev environment set up for anything other than hacking a Wordpress template is non-trivi

I'd say it's one of the biggest barriers to entry out there. Getting a dev environment set up for anything other than hacking a Wordpress template is non-trivial for most. I use the stuff at PortableApps.com quite often with consulting clients who need Firefox/Audacity/Gimp in a hurry. Could there be a portable Ruby/Python/Django dev setup that could get a novice going quickly without having to install a bunch of files?