Hi all, I'm now less than 3 weeks from retirement at a "ripe ol' 53" :^) One on my planned projects is to create a new paradigm in a badly served vertical business space. I've been using Python for ~6 months, though I've had the GvR and ML books for over 2 years. In the early Python days, I saw a lot of potential. After only a couple of days, I see *tremendous* potential for Zope... BUT... BTW, "but" is the "great _eraser_"... you can hear all sorts of great comments, be ready to close a sale, finish convincing someone... UNTIL the "BUT"... then everything that came before is now unimportant and one must scramble to "solve" the 'but's... :^) [You may have to lobotomize your Zope knowledge to understand where I'm at...] For me, all of the above is unimportant because after spending the w/e reading, trying to follow the JobBoard example, etc. I still feel like I'm looking into a glass house where I can see lots of great stuff; BUT, I still can't find the front door... could be it's too transparent, or I haven't found the "magic" (oft used word in docs) incantation... maybe my totally ignoring dungeon games was a bad idea. The words from Brad which really struck a chord in me as a Zope newbie are:
I'm experienced, quick-witted, hard-working, dogged and persistent. I read all the available documentation until my eyes bled. I read thousands of ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ the letters in the email forum.
Wow! Can I ever relate to this (except: hundreds vs thousands -- just started). Not to mention that people described this way usually use mailing lists as a _last_ resort; and in some cases, are never heard from. I see too much potential here to give up... my critique of the docs can be summed up this way: much of what I've read so far appears to be marketing/sales oriented. I'm tired (sic) of reading how good Zope is; I came to that conclusion after reading the first overview. Every time I read a doc, if it's salesy, I start skimming ever faster. Sadly, I may be missing the answer as a result; could it be that Zope might be better documented with LESS? I really wish I could help directly; but I have several issues to overcome first... I tried doing the JobBoard example because it seemed to have similar attributes to what I want to do. Result: failed. Why? Don't know yet. This raises some questions that I've not seen answered (yet): - root == blank (just found it in FAQ) - are docs always present/served? - can I remove docs, or move them aside (as a product)? - the first place I see an "Add" button is in <root>/ControlPanel/Products; if I add my project here, I get: Products ExternalMethod MIMETools MailHost MyProject <=== OFSP ZCatalog ZGadflyDA ZSQLMethods MailHost is the only clue that this might be the correct placement; but it seems to me that many "products" might be better grouped under "Tools" or somesuch if so. At one point, I wondered if I should install Zope in <somepath>/MyProject to avoid [via deletion] having the Zope docs served to the users of MyProject; You might find these simple, even silly, questions; but for whatever reason, the present docs fail to answer the most basic beginner questions which would probably only rise to the "doh!" level. The "giant leap" for me is stumped by the sea of words which prevent my "small step". [Weird: I just wrote the above and Conan O'Brien has a comedic version of the lunar landing complete with video of Armstrong and crew. :-] Re the "Use The Source, Luke" comments: I never had to read a single line of Python source to understand it. The docs (incl. 2 books) were quite terse in the getting started area; but script editing was the base requirement. The equivalent base requirement in Zope is akin to learning magic; the docs say so... Suggestion: (Sorry if this has already been proposed) don't stop development, or releases, etc. From what I can see, it should be fairly simple to create [with Zope -- doh! :-] a documentation structure and a mechanism to allow individuals to add to the docs. I still haven't found how to do it; but the current docs suggest that Versioning could also be useful here... Such a system would allow this newbie to pitch in [after finding the glass door :-]. Sigh... this raises the question: does versioning support check-out|-in? As in several versions working on the same elements... Bottom line: a lot less "Zope can..." marketing in the docs. I'm already sold; I'm in there for *answers*. Thanks for reading this far. Hard to focus... sleepy. |-| badly-wanting-the-doh!-factor-to-kick-in-ly yours, Pierre "beginner wannabe Zope-dope" Paul Everitt wrote:
Joe wrote:
I believe the zope community is astoundingly good at answering questions intelligently, just bunches of questions can go unanswered and there doesn't seem to be a faq good enough to eliminate the need for basic questions. Perhaps if we can translate some of the expounded list knowledge into faq material, zope startup will be all that much easier.
This is one of the greatest tragedies of all. Fantastic amounts of wisdom float by on the list every day and get lost.
I suggest that this discussion is better served on the ZDP list (zdp@zope.org).
--Paul
Paul Everitt Digital Creations paul@digicool.com 540.371.6909 ----------------------------------------- The Open Source Zope application server http://www.zope.org/
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