Thanks for resonding, even though there was a better list! I've got some fantastic replies, and was overwhelmed with the answers! I'll definately give Zope a try. -----Original Message----- From: Peter Sabaini [mailto:peter@sabaini.at] Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 10:32 AM To: Aaron Paxson Cc: 'zope-dev@zope.org' Subject: Re: [Zope-dev] Newbie Question Aaron Paxson wrote:
I hope I'm posting to the right mailing list. There were so many to decide from.
This should've probably been directed to the main Zope list; zope-dev is for development *of* Zope.
I've just been introduced to Zope, and am curious on how it will fit into my company's plans.
I'm currently learning Java, and was starting to learn the RedHat Web Application Framework. I've found Zope in an article on the web, and started to look into it. It looks to be just as scalable, but I'm curious on how extensible it is, as well as, it's power in a corporate environment.
For example, how extensible is it, to modify the security module and have it authenticate against LDAP? (I don't want all my users to remember yet another password) Also, how powerful is Python as compared to Java? Since it uses a native compiler, it stands to reason that it would be faster than Java, but what of it's objects and packages? (i.e. Does it have an image manipulation package, or networking packages?)
There are Add-ons that do User authentification against LDAP servers, and its also not very hard to roll your own. Zope is, generally speaking, *very* extensible -- see for example the long list of 3rd pary add-on products at http://www.zope.org/Products I think Python is one of the greatest strengths of Zope. Its not only a modern full-fledged OOP language, comes with great libraries (see http://python.org/doc/current/modindex.html, and has even more to download separately) but is simply a joy to program in. Bruce Eckel put it very nicely IMHO: http://mindview.net/FAQ/FAQ-012 ) Also see: http://csdl.computer.org/comp/mags/co/2000/10/rx023abs.htm http://www.cis.udel.edu/~silber/470STUFF/article.pdf http://www.twistedmatrix.com/users/glyph/rant/python-vs-java.html There are good networking modules in the standard Python distribution; image manipulation can be done with eg. PIL (http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/) or PythonMagick (http://www.procoders.net/moinmoin/PythonMagick)
I must say, seeing the documentation and books alone, tells me the product is good, and something I can learn. I see alot of "Hope for Zope" <grin, couldn't resist>, but I don't want to get into it, just to see if it doesn't fit into my plans.
For those who want a couple of examples, I have 3 projects for our intranet/extranet/internet applications:
1). Images and cataloging (where, our development team can upload their images, and the intranet application will take that image and export it to a JPG to update the web catalog, and move the original file to our FTP site for our photographers.
2). Document Management (Uploading of files, and inputting data to index on those files for searching)
3). Obviously the usual (Content Management and Portals) which I'm sure Zope does a good job at.
Those are certainly suited for Zope.... - peter.
Thanks in advance!! Again, my apologies if there is a better list for this post.
Aaron Paxson Network Operations Manager Decorative Concepts, Inc http://www.decorativeconcepts.com