Before we begin, we need to get a general introduction to some of the terminology associated with Plone development. Don't worry if the terms sound overly technical; in many cases, themers do not need to know about these terms in much detail.
Buildout:
A buildout is a self-contained environment where you can manage the dependencies (including Zope and Plone and any third-party products or libraries you need) and custom code for your project. Even if you are not planning on writing any custom code, the buildout approach is an easy way to install Plone in a robust, well-tested manner. It is documented thoroughly on plone.org and by Jim Fulton of Zope Corporation at http://buildout.zope.org/. When you install Plone, you are automatically given a working buildout.
Zope installation:
This is what you get by downloading and compiling Zope, or using one of the binary Zope installers. Downloading Plone and installing it gives you a Zope installation with Plone sitting on...