Itai asked:
"I started reading about ZPatterns but I still can't get my head around it... I'm wondering if I should try to learn it fast enough for this project, or stick to what I already know. What in people's experience is the typical learning curve for ZPatterns? How much am I going to have to figure out to be able to build support for SQL storage?
FYI ZPatterns has been a rapidly moving target, but it's looking pretty solid now, and a few folks have managed to wade in and make sense of it already. There's even some documentation at :
http://www.zope.org/Members/pje/Wikis/ZPatterns/HomePage
Most of the discussions you'll see on this list between Steve Spicklemire and Phil Eby / Ty Sarna are directly related to the next rev. of EMarket, which will be based on ZPatterns. If you think the flexibility that comes from a cleanly implemented Object Pattern will be worth the learning curve, ZPatterns is just about there now.
The "how" of storing data in an RDBMS, accessed with ZSQLMethods is no different with ZPatterns. The real difference is "who" does the storage and retrieval. This is the concept of the "Specialist" object, which "knows" all about the specifics of the data and storage implementation.
In any case, get to know ZClasses and PythonMethods, which may not have been ready for prime time, or even released, last time you looked. Those will be useful no matter which direction you choose.
Later, Jerry S.
Thanks. I did work with ZClasses and PythonMethods - I wasn't gone that long. I couldn't see how ZPatterns are actually implemented, regardless of what tools are used - but I'm getting it slowly, mostly by collecting a lot of tips from posts in the list over the past few months. ZPatterns looks great and definitely worth the learning curve - I'm off to buy Coad's book so I can do it right. -- Itai Tavor "Je sautille, donc je suis." C3Works itai@c3works.com - Kermit the Frog "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything"