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RE: [Zope] To Zope or Not To Zope?
by Paul Everitt 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

Ryan wrote: > A client of ours has approached us about designing and > building a major > web portal project focused around a particular topic area > with extensive > member services and content management abilities. We now have to spec > this project out and at some point in the near future I will have to > decide on a WWW server/Application server/Database > combination. Zope is > in the running, along with WebObjects, NetObjects, ODI's ObjectStore + > ObjectForms, etc. That's great to hear that we're being considered with such an auspicious (if expensive :^) lineup! > My initial impulse is to go with Zope because of its low cost > overhead and > my expertise with Python as well as the access I have to this > mailing list > and so on. Unfortunately my desire to do implement python is > offset by a > few major concerns, and I would like to see if anybody out there could > address these questions/concerns: You've definately done a straightforward job of delineating the concerns. Thanks for the evenhanded treatment. > 1) Zope seems to want to operate in a configuration of > web server, Hmm, I disagree a bit here. I still recommend people use Apache. > application server, and object database all in one package. I have > managed to get Zope to run using ZServer + Apache PCGI, but the > performance seems quite quite dismal. My concern is mainly We certainly haven't seen dismal performance. Could you be more specific? I think you should expect a million hits per day on a $3k machine using Apache in front of Zope. If you're talking an order of magnitude more than that, then you might be right. But that would make your site one of the top ten Internet destinations :^) To be more specific, if you'd like a significant boost in Apache performance, write a mod_zope that eliminates the forking and pcgi-wrapper connection. Or contract with us to do it and put it back out in the community. > scalability: I > want to be able to use an industry standard web server (i.e. apache) > separate from the application server so that I could do > things like scale > using multiple web servers, etc. etc. There are a whole number of reasons to want to keep Apache in the mix. We run Apache on zope.org due to this. > 2) The same issue applies to the DB layer. After > floating through > all the documentation on the zope.org site I am unclear what the > relationship would be between Zope and an industrial strength database > like Oracle 8, etc. I am wary of using Zope's own object DB > because of It's certainly legitimate in these remaining weeks before Zope2 to fret about scale and the object database. We'll have a lot more confidence once Z ODB 3 comes out of testing. Until then, you're raising a legitimate point. As for compatibility, I realize that some people don't feel comfortable "locking" their database in a Data.bbb file. We're taking steps to make this decision easier (e.g. XML import/export, Zope2's ability to store its contents in one or more relational database tables, etc.). But those won't be ready for use for at least another month. > scale and compatibility issues, but most of the benefits of using Zope > would be mitigated if I ended up having to write SQL queries Correct. > to access my > Oracle database. The question is: is it possible to use a DB > like Oracle > or Postgres, etc. transparently and in the same manner that I would be > using Zope's native db? How about an object DB like ODI's > ObjectStore? Right, the idea for Z ODB 3 is that you can have multiple storage managers as part of one logical object system. The object system could be partitioned across three files, a Sybase table, and an Oracle table. It's likely that the part that stores data in the relational database might start out commercial, as well as the client-server version of the object database. > 3) Zope is not "standard" enough that should I get run over by a > truck development could proceed without me. Finding consultants and > programmers other than myself to work on this project could > be difficult. I completely realize that going with Zope is still a risky decision. However, the question of risk due to being non-standard is mostly offset by the risk of going with a closed-source vendor. Do you _really_ trust Apple et al. to be responsive to all of your issues? IMO, customers should demand control. Again, thanks a bunch for taking the time to write up a well-reasoned statement of the issues! Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul(a)digicool.com 540.371.6909 ----------------------------------------- The Open Source Zope application server http://www.zope.org/ -----------------------------------------

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Re: [Zope] Running external applications
by 이관수(LEE Kwan Soo) 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

Graham Chiu wrote: >I'm a newbie to Zope. Me, too. After 6monthes of Zoping. (which equals 6 week in ordinay time-space since I've been writing my dissertation.) >How does one run all ones legacy applications eg. windows executables, >perl scripts etc. Well, as far as I see, you can only run suitable imported "Python applications" as external methods. Yes, ONLY PYTHON APPLICATIONS. BUT .... PYTHON application CAN DO MANY THINGS. There is some ?COM support example went around a couple of weeks ago. So YOU CAN MANUPLATE any ?COM application which reside in the same machine with Zope. (I do not know about this esoteric art. maybe some guru and source can enlighten you). On the ugliest side, there is system function from os moudle in Python, i.e. import os os.system("bla bla bla") ..... .... You can run any application in this way. (in Wndows os.system("start this_program.exe") ). The ugly face is that you do not have any direct way to force communication between the applicaion launched(forked?) in this way and the Zope par se. Once I was and am in this situation (with wget on my linux box) and did the ugliest thing to control the non-Python application. I forced the non-Python application write verbose log and let an Python external method read the log and do something. ... So if you are at least an awful newbie like me, welcome hell aboard. :-) Of course there are much elegant solutions which I can only guess from the source which the Zopian Gods bless us with, but I am too lazy or busy too practice the source. May the Source be with you. LEE Kwan Soo.

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testing module
by jiri stepan 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

hi all I'm developing simple Zope product, as is in ProductAPITutorial described. I can't test my product using Zope Debuger (ZPublisher.Test), because the Test module generates an Import Error exception. I have $PYTHONPATH set on <zope_dir>/lib/python . Is it corect ? I'm including traceback: >Traceback (innermost last): File "/install/Zope-1.10.2-linux2-x86/lib/python/ZPublisher/Test.py", line 402, in ? if __name__ == "__main__": main() File "/install/Zope-1.10.2-linux2-x86/lib/python/ZPublisher/Test.py", line 211, in main publish(module,path_info,u=u,p=profile,d=debug,t=timeit,e=env,s=silent) File "/install/Zope-1.10.2-linux2-x86/lib/python/ZPublisher/Test.py", line 399, in publish publish_module(file, environ=env, stdout=stdout) File "/install/Zope-1.10.2-linux2-x86/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py", line 877, in publish_module response = publisher.publish(module_name,after_list, File "/install/Zope-1.10.2-linux2-x86/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py", line 325, in publish (bobo_before, bobo_after, request_params, File "/install/Zope-1.10.2-linux2-x86/lib/python/ZPublisher/Publish.py", line 616, in get_module_info module=__import__(module_name, globals(), globals(), ('__doc__',)) ImportError: (<class exceptions.ImportError at 80b3658>, 'No module named py') Thaks for every answer Jiri Stepan (zope(a)etnetera.cz)

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Re: [Zope] ANN: ZCatalog 1.0.0 alpha
by Martijn Pieters 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

At 21:20 25/06/99 , Michel Pelletier wrote: >Greetings Zopeheads. > >After much sweat and toil and 4 rewrites, we are pleased to announce the >release of ZCatalog, the Zope Cataloging and Searching Product, version >1.0.0 alpha. > >The Catalog can be found at: > >http://www.zope.org/Download/ZCatalog It's beautiful. Some remarks: * The docs mention the ZCatalog having an entry in the public CVS. When will this be realized? * Right now, search results on multiple indexes are intersected; if you have a search term on the title and the body of a news item, only objects that have hits on both indexes are shown. This makes it practically impossible to present one search field that will present the user with objects that have the search term in one of the indexes. I would like to be able to concatenate the results from different indexes. intSet supports this operation (union). * catalogView.dtml still contains (albeit commented out) debugging code =) -- Martijn Pieters, Web Developer | Antraciet http://www.antraciet.nl | Tel: +31-35-7502100 Fax: +31-35-7502111 | mailto:mj@antraciet.nl http://www.antraciet.nl/~mj | PGP: http://wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xA8A32149 ------------------------------------------

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Zope obj naming vs python obj naming.
by Jay, Dylan 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

I came up against a situation just now whereby I had several folders in zope named with prefixes 7_1Load I believe it is illigal in python to have an object name start with an integer. So when I tried to access my folder by name in an external method I got an error. Is there another way of accessing the object in python? If not shouldn't python naming restrictions be applied to zope objects otherwise there is no guarentee that an external method will work with all objects. ps. The line I was using in the external method was "eval('self.'+id)" or something similar. I also tried getattr

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Re: [Zope] Sessions needed
by michel＠digicool.com 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

Frank Buhr <buhr(a)kogs1.informatik.uni-hamburg.de> writes: > Hi, > > after doing some experiments with Zope I'm still missing an important feature: > > How can I easily keep state information over several HTTP-Requests? > > The abstraction that provides this is called "session" for instance in the Java Servlet API > http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/2.1/html/api-reference.fm.html#945 > JS-sessions provide an abstraction from cookie-mechanisms or URL encoding. > > Netscapes server side javascript provides similar things. There are some > choices for the implementation of sessions: keeping state information > on the server (the client only references an ID) or on the client > (all values are stored on the client), using cookies, URL encoding or > hidden form elements. > > I found some Classes in the Zope sources where there is already state information > maintained by cookies (TreeTag and ZRDB.DA) > This seems to be equivalent to the combination "data on the client, use cookies" from above. > > I very much like the idea of separating the service of "state keeping" from > the concrete implementation (which might even be chosen dynamically according > to browser capabilities or user preferences ("no cookies -> use URL encoding") > > Did I overlook something or is there really no session _abstraction_ in Zope? You are correct, there is no low level session abstraction in Zope. This problem is much thornier than it sounds. Attempting to have a both useable and flexable session toolkit has show to us to be a difficult concept that requires a lot of thought. What are generally called 'sessions' is actually a smaller piece of a much larger puzzle we call 'membership'. More than just a private namespace for a series of HTTP transactions, membership is more of a concept of 'meta-sessions', keeping state between a series of sessions. There are, actually, only a small number of scenarios where construction and destruction of 'sessions' is useful unless the information on the user of that sessions is kept for later sessions. Everyone and their brother has a gazzillion custom requirements they need satified in this very vague (and ill-defined by the JS standard) area we call membership. The actualy 'session' part (which we use a cookie to solve) is one of the easiest pieces of the puzzle. Although many other toolkits have the ability to create an abstraction they call 'session' it is hard to find one that handles membership in a usable and flexable fasion (rumor has it WebObjects has a rather nice model in this regard, of course you have to drop some TALL cash to get it). We want our system to be able to satisfy most requirements, and be able to be molded without breaking any of it to fit all the rest. For example, membership should be flexible enough to store membership information in an SQL database, but it should not be required. So, that aside, I can tell you that this is a deep problem we are thinking about actively here at DC in various top secret projects, and we plan on solving in the usual ultra cool Zope Zen way. > > (At first sight the feature now called "versions" seemed to do something similar > but this was only the first sight.) > > A Session (in my definition) should provide a private namespace for exactly one user > (or web client). It should have an optional timeout in order to destroy it if the > user is inactive. > Ah there lies the rub. 'exactly one user' is not a concept currently in Zope. It is possible for me to create users called 'michel' at various and disjoined areas of Zope. This is a wildly usable feature of Zope. Creating 'members' is a higher level concept than this, members should be singular, there should be no two 'Michel' members in the same 'membership'. Members should have an area that is 'theirs' (like the UNIX concept of a home directory). etc. etc. It gets sticky and easy to paint oneself in a corner. > Has anyone build a nice Zope product which does this? > I believe there is a product somewhere out there that lets you manipulate cookies in the browser to store some small amount of state (something like 4K) on the client. I believe it was called CookieCutter. This could be useful for your short term goals. Perhaps the author could chime in? > May be sessions could be integrated into the object database > (by declaring objects to have a special scope and extent)? We generally avoid putting HTTP specific (or even Zope specific) feature in the database, this grossly violates our componentized model. The ZODB should (and is) be useful for a variety of applications completely unrelated to Zope or the web. In either case, the database is pretty transparent and low level at Zope's python API layer, so the problem could be easily solved without bringing any thought about the database into it. -Michel > > > > Frank > > _______________________________________________ > Zope maillist - Zope(a)zope.org > http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope > > (For developer-specific issues, use the companion list, > zope-dev(a)zope.org - http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )

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Sessions needed
by Frank Buhr 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

Hi, after doing some experiments with Zope I'm still missing an important feature: How can I easily keep state information over several HTTP-Requests? The abstraction that provides this is called "session" for instance in the Java Servlet API http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/2.1/html/api-reference.fm.html#945 JS-sessions provide an abstraction from cookie-mechanisms or URL encoding. Netscapes server side javascript provides similar things. There are some choices for the implementation of sessions: keeping state information on the server (the client only references an ID) or on the client (all values are stored on the client), using cookies, URL encoding or hidden form elements. I found some Classes in the Zope sources where there is already state information maintained by cookies (TreeTag and ZRDB.DA) This seems to be equivalent to the combination "data on the client, use cookies" from above. I very much like the idea of separating the service of "state keeping" from the concrete implementation (which might even be chosen dynamically according to browser capabilities or user preferences ("no cookies -> use URL encoding") Did I overlook something or is there really no session _abstraction_ in Zope? (At first sight the feature now called "versions" seemed to do something similar but this was only the first sight.) A Session (in my definition) should provide a private namespace for exactly one user (or web client). It should have an optional timeout in order to destroy it if the user is inactive. Has anyone build a nice Zope product which does this? May be sessions could be integrated into the object database (by declaring objects to have a special scope and extent)? Frank

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Re: [Zope] ANN: ZCatalog 1.0.0 alpha
by michel＠digicool.com 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

Paul Prescod <paul(a)prescod.net> writes: > Michel Pelletier wrote: > > > > Greetings Zopeheads. > > > > After much sweat and toil ..... > > > ... We would, however, like the tired to be well > > kicked. > > Well then get over here! How am I going to kick you over the > Internet? You just did. ;) > > > We recommend you read the ZCatalog Tutorial, written by Mike Pelletier > > (Note that 'Mike' Pelletier is a completely different person than > > 'Michel' Pelletier, which is me) which is available on the web at the > > above location. > > Maybe one of you could change your name. I've heard that the name "Bobo" > is available. > Nope. We allready have a Bobo 'Conner in the community. -Michel

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Re: [Zope] Re: ZCatalog alpha
by michel＠digicool.com 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

Alex Rice <alrice(a)swcp.com> writes: > On 26 Jun 1999 15:20:57 -0400, > michel(a)digicool.com said: > > michel> The several MB of text would probably translate into 2 or 3 > michel> times that in memory growth. However, the Persistence machinery > michel> will quickly start to deactivate unused portions of the index. > michel> Try tweaking your Cache settings to see if you can get Zope to > michel> be more aggresive about deactivating objects. > > OK, here's some more data points, just in case it's useful: > > My z2.py process starts at about 5-6MB memory usage. After indexing > about 2MB of text, it goes up to 40 MB memory usage. Manually running > the GC, it goes down to 38MB. (manage_pack and manage_cache_size are not > implemented, yet, I think) Stopping, then starting Zope it goes back > down to 5-6MB. After searching via the catalog it's at about 8MB and > stays right around there. > Ok, this is pretty unusual, good clue that it only grows your process size by 2MB after a restart, I suspect then that there is some leak in the 'find and catalog' code. > Thanks for ZCatalog. It's going to be immensely useful. Yes, it fills an aching gap in Zope's Open Source capabilities. -Michel > > Alex Rice | alrice(a)swcp.com | http://www.swcp.com/~alrice > Current Location: N. Rio Grande Bioregion, Southwestern USA > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Zope maillist - Zope(a)zope.org > http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope > > (For developer-specific issues, use the companion list, > zope-dev(a)zope.org - http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )

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Re: [Zope] Startup error Zope 2.0.0a3: Error 139
by michel＠digicool.com 28 Jun '99

28 Jun '99

Alexander Staubo <alex(a)mop.no> writes: > I really, really hate to be a pest, but could somebody at DC please look > this way and at least make a small attempt at helping me out? > > Python 1.5.2 and Zope both compiled with gcc 2.8.1; relevant? > Were there any errors during the compile? A core dump usualy means that something went wrong in one of the C Extensions that caused a low level exception, like accessing a NULL pointer. It would be nice to find out exactly where in the code this is happening. First, I'd like to eliminate ZServer from the equation, could you go to the lib/python directory and run python1.5.2, then: >>> import Zope, ZPublisher >>> ZPublisher.Main('/') This will simulate a request for '/' (the root folder's index_html method). If this doesn't fail, then the problem is in ZServer (which I find unlikely, there being no C in ZServer). In the case of failure, it will either happen after the import or after the call to Main(). If the former, let us know that, if the latter, load python and do the import and then try: >>> ZPublisher.Main('/', d=1) This will put you in the debugger (which you might want to read about a bit on python.org if you don't know how to use it) using combinations of (s)tep and (n)ext, try and narrow down right to the line of code where the core dump is happening. -Michel > -- > Alexander Staubo http://www.mop.no/~alex/ > "`This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over > his beer, `I never could get the hang of Thursdays.'" > --Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ > > >-----Original Message----- > >From: Alexander Staubo [mailto:alex@mop.no] > >Sent: 25. juni 1999 16:07 > >To: Zope Mailing List (E-mail) > >Subject: RE: [Zope] Startup error Zope 2.0.0a3: Error 139 > > > > > >I hear rumours that error code 139 indicates memory corruption. Also I > >just noticed the crash below has Python producing a core dump, anybody > >want to look at it? > > > >-- > >Alexander Staubo http://www.mop.no/~alex/ > >"What the hell, he thought, you're only young once, and threw > >himself out of the window. That would at least keep the element of > >surprise on his side." > >--Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ > > > >>-----Original Message----- > >>From: Alexander Staubo [mailto:alex@mop.no] > >>Sent: 25. juni 1999 15:43 > >>To: Zope Mailing List (E-mail) > >>Subject: [Zope] Startup error Zope 2.0.0a3: Error 139 > >> > >> > >>I just installed Zope 2.0.0a3 (no CVS patches) on a Slackware > >Linux 2.2 > >>(libc6, Python 1.5.2) box. Of course, it refuses to start: > >> > >>firewall:/usr/local/zope-2.0.0a3# python z2.py -d 192.168.1.1 > >>-w 8080 -f > >>2121 > >>zdeamon: Fri Jun 25 15:32:33 1999: Houston, we have forked > >>zdeamon: Fri Jun 25 15:32:33 1999: Houston, we have forked > >>zdeamon: Fri Jun 25 15:32:33 1999: Hi, I just forked off a kid: 24905 > >>zdeamon: Fri Jun 25 15:32:35 1999: Aiieee! 24905 exited with > >>error code: > >>139 > >> > >>Curiously, no tracebacks? > >> > >>-- > >>Alexander Staubo http://www.mop.no/~alex/ > >>"What the hell, he thought, you're only young once, and threw > >>himself out of the window. That would at least keep the element of > >>surprise on his side." > >>--Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ > >> > >> > >>_______________________________________________ > >>Zope maillist - Zope(a)zope.org > >>http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope > >> > >>(For developer-specific issues, use the companion list, > >>zope-dev(a)zope.org - http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev ) > >> > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Zope maillist - Zope(a)zope.org > >http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope > > > >(For developer-specific issues, use the companion list, > >zope-dev(a)zope.org - http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev ) > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Zope maillist - Zope(a)zope.org > http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope > > (For developer-specific issues, use the companion list, > zope-dev(a)zope.org - http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )

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