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Re: [Zope] comparision between zope and other technologies
by Hung Jung Lu 05 May '00

05 May '00

About a month ago I had an e-mail exchange with Jimmie Houchin on the comparison between Zope and Enhydra. Since I have his permission, I will repost his message here. Java is an OK language. But it's designed by the corporate, for the corporate. Hung Jung ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hello, I have kept an eye on both Enhydra and Zope for the last year or so, Zope a little longer. Enhydra does have some interesting stuff that Zope does not yet. Enhydra Director which is coming out sometime will bring increased scalability to Enhydra. XMLC does a good job of separating interface from logic. In the end I just unsubscribed from the Enhydra list and am proceeding full speed with Zope. Zope has got a great user community. Enhydra's is much smaller and quieter. I think both Lutris and Digital Creations are good companies. I don't get too excited about Java. I'll use it if I have to, not because I want to. Python I use because I want to. Enhydra/Java to me seems to heavy and too engineered which makes it overly complex for web development. Zope can take a while to learn, but once you understand it, I believe it will make your website development much easier and powerful. After you learn Enhydra, you still have to deal with the complexity of Enhydra/Java. Zope comes with a much richer set of user community functionality. Zope is stronger in delegating responsibilities. I feel that Zope's framework is more ready to plugin into for many types of sites. Enhydra provides a basic set of tools and then you are on your own. If I was to use Enhydra I would have to write many of the functions Zope brings. Browse Enhydra's site and you see very little user contributed material. Browse Zope's and their is much. Two completely different types of communities. Zope's main weakness is performance/scalability. The community is aware of it and so is Digital Creations. Digital Creations has ZEO available commercially for those who need and can afford it. I think Python will improve performance. I think Zope will improve in performance. Hardware continually improves in performance. Currently this is my recipe for a high performing Zope site. "Not tested. Just my theory." Dual processor Zope machine. OS and Apache on one processor. Zope on the other processor. OS, Apache and static content, (images, binaries, etc.) on one hard drive (RAID array, etc.) Zope, ZODB on another hard drive (RAID array, etc.) The above can even be split into two machines if desired allowing for lots of memory for caching content. RDBMS machine Multi-processor machine and high quality RDBMS. Nice hard drive RAID array. With processors reaching 1 ghz, lots of ram, and fast hard drives, I believe a good setup like above can serve a pretty big site. If your site needs more than the above can offer, get ZEO and another machine for another Zope process to plug into your website. The above is probably what I will start out with when I've developed my site. I will be getting my development machine at home in a couple of weeks and then it's off to the races. I look forward to being a contributing member to the Zope community. These are just my personal opinions. I know you emailed me directly, but this message is free to share if you wish. Jimmie Houchin Hung Jung Lu wrote: > >Hi, > >I read some of your e-mails in the Enhydra mailing list. >You seem to be knowledgeable in both. :) > >I would like a brief description of the differences between >Enhydra and Zope. Enhydra seems to have a smaller group of >developers. Given my bad past experience with Java, I am >really biased against Java. :) But I would like a more >impartial opinion. My experience in Java is that it has >too many syntax details you need to worry about before >you can do something... development time is a lot slower >than Python. Python's running-also-means-compiling model >is really neat: you can have the server program running, >modify part of its codes and reload the module dynamically >without stopping the main program. When I was programming >in Java, it was very frustrating that you had to implement >all the features of an interface before you can get a >feedback... Python gives you immediate feedback right away. >Well, Java needs an IDE, and at the time I was programming >in Java, Visual Cafe was still really really bad. I would >say jumping into Java's bandwagon was a huge mistake on >the part of previous company I was working for, and as a >result the company had to cancel our Java projects and it >wasted about two years development time at an average of >3 programmers. The previous place I worked for was a >multimedia company, and in that circle many companies jumped >onto Java but most have had non-rewarding experience. And >lately I just feel like Java hype is really subsiding. The >overhead of starting to write something is Java is just >too heavy. > >I don't know anything in Enhydra. But in Zope, there is >minimal coding in Python. Matter of fact, for simple sites >there is almost no need for traditional programming. The >basic dynamic functionalities are embedded inside the >HTML-like documents. > >Here is a message from the Zope mailing list. > >tony rossignol <tony-(a)ep.newtimes.com> wrote: >original article:http://www.egroups.com/group/zope/?start=26002 > > After looking at both Zope and Enhydra I concluded for my purposes that > > they really fit into two very different realms. Both tools > > (applications, application interfaces, whatever you want to call them) > > fit the bill for developing web applications. Both tools provide for > > HTML/XML markup to easily integrate with web designers. > > > > Enhydra deviates from here to be more consultant/development driven with > > its class file delivery/deployment method. Where as Zope continues, it > > provides an interactive management model, where the web designer can > > update an application and extent it without having to have development > > support, there is no compile phase that needs to be done before > > deployment. > > > > I believe it depends on what your perspective; If you're more > > development centric, Enhydra works great. If you have to interface > > developers and designers on a an ongoing basis and want to deligate more > > control to designers Zope is the winner. > > > > Well thats my 2 cents. > >Anyway, I would like some more impartial opinion, since myself >is kind of biased. :) Any comment would be greatly appreciated. > >I think that it is kind of surprising that neither in the >Zope mailing list nor in the Enhydra mailing list there is >enough comparison/comments on each other. > >Do you think corporates out there are still have the image of >Java as a superior language? Do you think Java is there to stay, >or is it running into an uncertain future, now? Right now I am >developing in Zope, but I would not mind going Java, as long >as it pleases outside venture capitalists. :) > >regards, > >Hung Jung ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

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Re: [Zope] Comments? To create products with Python or with ZClasses
by Simon Michael 05 May '00

05 May '00

"Jason Spisak" <444(a)hiretechs.com> writes: > <snip wonderful contribution to start a discussion> ditto, thanks Kevin. > > The single biggest reason that I don't develop my products in > > Python is the fact that you need to restart Zope to test your > > changes. > > I there any other was besides the pdb to test you products without > restarting zope? I really think that'd be worth me trying. I wouldn't > know where to start though. From what I know, Python modules can just use > the "reload" command. Why doesn't Zope have that? I tried calling this at the zserver monitor prompt recently, with no apparent effect. -Simon

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Comments? To create products with Python or with ZClasses
by Kevin Dangoor 05 May '00

05 May '00

Hi, Please correct me if any assumptions in here are wrong. (You may not agree with my conclusions, but as long as my assumptions are correct, I'm happy. :) Any other feedback is also welcomed, of course. This document is also here: http://www.zope.org/Members/tazzzzz/PythonOrZClass Kevin http://www.byproducts.com - Humor and Novelties Purpose of this document May 5, 2000. Please send feedback! Zope offers two distinctly different development "environments": Python Products, and built through the web ZClasses. Though you can certainly use both in a single project, you will likely turn to one or the other as a first step when approaching a new problem. I get the feeling that the folks at DC turn to Python first, whereas I turn to ZClasses. This document doesn't go into any background about what a ZClass or Python Product is... I think other docs do that well enough. For the sake of brevity, I'll refer to Python Products as "PyProds". Speed I believe that PyProds and ZClasses are roughly the same in terms of speed of execution. ZClasses have some wrapper stuff around them, but I don't think there is much (if any) extra code that needs to be executed when calling ZClass methods. Development Tools PyProds are clearly at an advantage in terms of development tools. Creating ZClasses and propertysheets, and adding views and methods to a ZClass are certainly very user friendly processes. However, editing code in a textarea has some definite drawbacks. Since PyProds reside in the filesystem, it is very easy to use your favorite editor, CVS, grep and other tools when working with your code. ZClasses will be getting help down the line in the form of the ZopeStudio Mozilla app. Currently, you can edit your code using your favorite editor if it supports FTP. It also seems possible to create some simple tools that allow you to edit your ZClass code locally, store it in CVS, and send the changes through via XML-RPC or ZClient. Flexibility PyProds win in the flexibility department as well. In order to keep evil people from gaining access to your box through your website, through the web components can only do a subset of what Python can do. For example, you can't open files in DTML or a PythonMethod. PyProds live in the file system, and therefore have access to all Python and Zope services. It is also likely to be a lot faster to create a relatively complex object hierarchy in Python than it would be to build it up through the web. A very important flexibility issue with ZClasses is that once you've created the ZClass, there is no guaranteed way to change the base classes. There are apparently some really deep issues behind this. To give yourself the ability to change base classes later on, it is probably wise to create a Python base class for your ZClass and have that class inherit from the appropriate other classes. Then, you can just change that little bit of Python in order to add or remove a base class. This has the added benefit that you can easily make minor additions to your ZClass that would not be possible through the web (such as writing a custom object traversal handler). Ease of Programming Once you get into the swing of it, ZClasses are quite easy. Writing complicated DTML Methods is not necessarily a fun thing, but PythonMethods give you a way to avoid complicated DTML and still develop through the web. The single biggest reason that I don't develop my products in Python is the fact that you need to restart Zope to test your changes. For that reason, it is probably best to test your classes directly from the Python interpreter rather than through Zope. This allows you to see the changes much more quickly. Once you think your classes are basically working, you can fire up Zope and try it from the web. While that method certainly will get the job done, I find programming with ZClasses to be a nice fast process. You can have two browser windows going, one with the code and one where you're testing the code. The process of making a change and trying it out is very fast. I also find that Versions are very nice for minor bug repair on a production system. Conclusions Python is a great language, but I think I'll stick to ZClasses for the bulk of my web development. They really are quite fast and easy, and PythonMethods give you the benefit of using a nice, clean language for your logic as well. I am going to start using Python base classes for my ZClasses though. It is really a very small amount of work to create them, and the benefits are significant: you can easily change base classes and create functionality that is otherwise impossible through the web.

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Recursive <dtml-var> statements
by Kyle D. Lanclos 05 May '00

05 May '00

This is not the first time I've had to try and hack around Zope not letting me recurse <dtml-var> statements, but this is the first time that I haven't found a solution. My hair is turning greyer by the minute. Here's an example of what I'm trying to do: arguments: target_field:string old_value_list:list old_value:string new_value:string And the function replace() just does string.join(string.split(input, old_value), new_value). <dtml-in old_value_list> update table_name set <dtml-var target_field>= '<dtml-var "replace(sequence-item, old_value, new_value)" sql_quote>' where <dtml-var target_field>='<dtml-var sequence-item sql_quote>' <dtml-var sql_delimiter> </dtml-in> This would, if it ever works, generate statements like the following: update table_name set url='www.foo.org' where url='www.foo.com'; update table_name set url='www.bar.org' where url='www.bar.com'; update table_name set url='www.baz.org' where url='www.baz.org'; ...if I was generating update statements to replace .com with .org for certain values of title_field. All of my external methods and what-have-you are defined and accessible. I originally started out with the full string.join(string.split) hooplah instead of the function replace(), but this is where things currently stand. My problem? I can't access sequence-item within another dtml-var statement. This would not be an issue if I didn't have to modify the contents of old_value_list within the dtml-in statement. Accessing it directly via <dtml-var sequence-item> works perfectly fine, of course, but I can't just stick that within another dtml-var. If I could do this: <dtml-var "replace(<dtml-var sequence-item>, old_value, new_value)"> ...my life would be easy. I have tried representing sequence-item within the dtml-var in (at least) the following additional ways: _.REQUEST(['sequence-item']) _['sequence-item'] _.getitem(sequence-item) I originally had this whole mess shipped off to an external method, which worked just fine until the input list generated a return string longer than the max query length (16382ish), even though the return string was separated into single update requests as I described above. The whole reason I'm doing this within Zope is to get the <dtml-var sql_delimiter> tag on my side. Suggestions are very, very welcome. Please include a CC: to my e-mail address with any replies, since I am not subscribed to the mailing list. Thank you very much, --Kyle UCSC University Library

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Reload of Python Products
by Jason Spisak 05 May '00

05 May '00

Zopists, In light of Kevin D.'s recent document on PyProds or ZClasses, how difficult would it be to give all products the option of a reload tab? Some method you could include in your product to add a reload tab to the management interface? All my best, Jason Spisak CIO HireTechs.com 6151 West Century Boulevard Suite 900 Los Angeles, CA 90045 P. 310.665.3444 F. 310.665.3544 Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B) This email address may not be added to any commercial mail list with out my permission. Violation of my privacy with advertising or SPAM will result in a suit for a MINIMUM of $500 damages/incident, $1500 for repeats.

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Postgresql support on Zope
by Adrian Esteban Madrid 05 May '00

05 May '00

Is anybody using (succesfully) PostgreSQL? Any comments on speed/reliability/(zope)zen? Adrian

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Newbie question
by Andy McKay 05 May '00

05 May '00

I have an image I reference in dtml as: <dtml-var Man.gif> I move it to an images folder and then try to reference as: <dtml-var /images/Man.gif> It doesnt work. Whats the correct syntax? TIA.

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Fw: [Zope] Zope, NT & Different Ports
by Hugo Ramos 05 May '00

05 May '00

----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Withers" <chrisw(a)nipltd.com> To: <zope(a)zope.org> Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 1:08 PM Subject: [Zope] Zope, NT & Different Ports > Hi, > > I'd like to run two instances of Zope on my NT4 machine (one for development and > one for use...) > > How can I set the port numbers when they're running as services? You can go to this url: http://www.zope.org/Members/teyc/howNTService It is all there!!! good luck! inte --- Hugo Ramos - hramos(a)ruido-visual.pt Ruido Visual - Telecomunicacoes Interactivas, Lda

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Re: Newbie question
by Andy McKay 05 May '00

05 May '00

I just found out the answer. If anyone else is having the same problem the answer is in this doc: http://www.zope.org/Members/Hoekstra/ChangingContexts1 and the answer is: <dtml-var "images.Man"> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy McKay" <AndyM(a)ActiveState.com> To: <zope(a)zope.org> Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 9:14 AM Subject: Newbie question > I have an image I reference in dtml as: > <dtml-var Man.gif> > > I move it to an images folder and then try to reference as: > <dtml-var /images/Man.gif> > > It doesnt work. Whats the correct syntax? > > TIA. >

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how: passing a list as a hidden variable from doc to doc
by news-list.zope＠innominate.de 05 May '00

05 May '00

Hello Zopistas, I've come across this problem, (which delays my whole project and upsets my employer): I have a Form that displays a list of files for deletion and a checkbox for each file to select it: <dtml-in "prjfolder.objectIds('File')" skip_unauthorized> <input type=checkbox name=del_list value=<dtml-var sequence-item>> [...] Users can check the files they want to delete. They submit the form to the next dtml-method, say "delete". all checked filenames are passed to this method as a list object, e.g.: ['file1', 'file2', 'file3']. If I pass this list object to manage_delObjects(del_list), everything goes fine. The objects are deleted. Logical flow: select -> delete BUT: I have to ask the user if he really wants to delete the files. Thus: select -> ask -> delete So I need to pass the list of filenames through that darn "ask" document. There I did something like: <input type=hidden name=del_list:list value="<dtml-var "REQUEST['del_list']">"> this renders to: <input type=hidden name=del_list:list value="['file1', 'file2', 'file3']"> (Note: I did the :list type conversion. I also tried tokens, lines, whatever...) If the user chooses to delete, I finally call my delete document, which is supposed to delete the files in the list. but the call to manage_delObjects(del_list) fails with: Error Value: ['file1', 'file2', 'file3'] does not exist How do I pass a list object from one document to another? It always somehow becomes a string, breaking everything. There must be a clean way; I do not want to do string magic with split or so. Anyone help me out, please. thanks in advance, Heiko -- heiko.stoermer(a)innominate.de innominate AG networkingpeople fon: +49.30.308806-0 fax: -77 web: http://innominate.de

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