Ian Clarke wrote:
Doesn't Java (as a pretty much universally accepted client side language) figure in this anywhere?
<flamebait type="language holy war"> I don't know of any language that is "universally accepted". Use whatever language *you* want to use. For Zope, Python might be a better fit. Or maybe even JPython. </flamebait>
Would it really be that difficult to create a Java conduit to the Zope database?
The conduit already exists. XML-RPC lets you call any method in the Zope API -- from ANY language that supports XML-RPC.
It could support the various permissions based access and stuff, and then support plugins for editing the different types of object. In this manner, say, the makers of SquishDot could create a custom SquishDot editor plugin, and such like.
Creating this UI (plugins, etc.) is vastly more complex than creating a communication channel. IMO, Mozilla/XUL would be easier for product developers to support: 1) it is semantically closer to the HTML interface that they must already create, and 2) it can share a lot with the default HTML interface.