At 02:33 PM 6/11/00 -0600, Shane Hathaway wrote:
I believe I have come to understand the basics of ZPatterns and would like to be sure I understand correctly, as well as help others understand also.
[a lot of good stuff snipped]
The other concepts in ZPatterns expand upon this model. I am still working on grasping them.
Bravo! An exquisite introduction to the purpose of ZPatterns. May I post an edited version of your message to the ZPatterns Wiki, and make it or subsequently edited versions a part of the ZPatterns documentation? (With attribution, of course.)
ZPatterns also provides the "Plugins" architecture. Racks and specialists are derived from the plugins classes. I see plugins as being a concept that could be used by product authors who don't have a
use for racks and specialists. I wonder whether plugins ought to be made a part of standard Zope.
It certainly might be reasonable for them to be a package of their own, or to be a part of "standard" Zope, since PlugIns.py and its associated DTML files do not make use of any other part of ZPatterns. It is mostly a question of whether DC has an interest in making it a part of the library. I think it should probably wait, however, until it is a bit better documented and the few API bits that are still fluctuating settle down completely. I would also be interested in figuring out a way to register ZClasses as PlugIns; right now they have to be registered from Python.