Hi all, Chris McDonough wrote:
So in the next version of the printed book there would be a cd packed with code-examples ,-)
I'm not sure if you've seen it, but the newest Zopes ship with an Examples folder that contains some simple example applications. They're not "real world" apps because they're very simple, but they should get folks "up and going". Maybe there needs to be a Zope Book chapter that explains the examples in the Examples folder.
What is the status of Zope Help-files - and what is going to happen with them?
They continue to be updated every release. The help system implementation might change, but the content will stay the same (or hopefully be improved). Currently the API reference in the Zope Book is generated right from the help files, but it may make sense to make a different book (API reference or something) out of it to give it more exposure.
perhaps a dumb question, but would it be feasible to create the API-docs straight from the source? OFS/Propertymanager.py is a nice example of a doc-string. A tool like Dieter Maurer's docfinder shows how good incode documentation can be very valuable. This could perhaps be combined with a talkbacked source browsing feature on zope.org. Everytime I have to dive really into the source to find out what happens with my arguments (take ZCatalog.ZopeFindAndApply as an example) I wish I could have some possibility to conserve what I found out. This doesn't have to be perfect, but I *would* have added that information anywhere if I had known where. I don't know how sun creates something like http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/index.html apart from the $$$$ they spend (which we/zope corp./supposedly everyone else here can't), but every java type I know tells me about the tremendous help it is. I know going that far is not doable, but it really show a direction for making the second half of the learning curve somewhat less steep.
Yes. I remember some time seen some proposition about rating system for zope.org products. That would be nice, since peers would be able to rate and comment on products. Also the feature to send comments to the maker -- and also on the product page, would be nice. Meaning that if there is a product which looks in words good, but in reality is buggy crap, and the writer is long gone.. for example changed company and email address etc.. users could write comments about their luck with product / howto - etc.
Yes, parts of this exist in new.zope.org. I'm not sure that helps a lot, though. ;-)
I don't know if you refer to this very implementation, or to rating/comments in general. I can only speak for myself, but for me, things like that were valuable, be it freshmeat, apps.kde.com, www.kdelook.org. It sometimes even is valuable browsing ordered by score, so that I see if I might have overlooked some gems. cheers, oliver