Digicool's announcement of some Perl support for Zope obviously surprised a lot of people. I haven't seen much positive reaction here on the list. In fact, I daresay I have seen some concerns which I consider to be quite valid indeed. After all, a web developer who is a Python fanatic chooses Zope for its underlying language. [Sh|H]e is unlikely to react warmly to the stench of Perl and the hideous possibility that a customer might develop the expectation that Zope and Perl expertise would go hand in hand. [ Oops, sorry. Did I accidentally let my personal scripting language bias show through in the previous paragraph? ;-) ] Actually, I'm posting this note to offer another perspective, in support of this news. The following is just my opinion, formulated largely out of conjecture and a desire to view this Perl-Zope announcement in a more positive light: In the bigger picture, maybe it's not about "Perl vs. Python". Maybe it's about "scripting languages vs. Java". Sad to say, a majority of IT people in the world think that the terms "application server" and "Java" are nearly synonymous. Next time you have a chance to visit a major Internet tradeshow, look around at all the Java-based application servers. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting one of them. Zope is different. It's certainly accurate to say that Zope is all about Python. However, it's also somewhat accurate to say that Zope is about server-side *scripting*. I don't see this announcement as a major shift toward Perl on the part of the Zope developers. Looking over the history of Digital Creations and its team, it seems quite obvious that any of them could prick their finger and see Python code flowing out instead of blood. I *speculate* that this announcement is simply a consequence of Really Big Vision. Right now, Zope is 'The Python Application Server'. Let's suppose for a moment that Zope's ambitions are much bigger than we think, and that its commitment to purity is slightly lower than we think. In other words, let's just suppose that Zope really wants to be 'The Scripting-Language Application Server'. If so, then why should it not invite the [enormous] Perl crowd into its community? -- Eric W. Sink, Software Craftsman SourceGear Corporation eric@sourcegear.com