1. Object Orientation
Zope is Object publishing environment. As far as I know, nothing takes object publishing as far as Zope does. The language to code in is Python, which is *nearly 100%* (or for all practical purposes) OO.
2. Server and client objects. ZPT! The best there is.
3. Framework This is where Zope really shines, IMO. It is a framework where you can change implementation of bits and pieces. Can't be better than this for making software that needs to last long.
4. Support 5. 3th party support Compared to Java, ASP or PHP, this is less.
6. Cost $0
7. Userfriendly How good is the development platform. Are all tools needed available. Is the platform intuitive to use. Here, Zope lacks IMO. Majority of "web developers" I've seen have little experience with software engineering. For such folks, Zope is a paradigm shift when compared to ASP/PHP/CF. If you've people with OO or RDBMS fundamentals. they'll love Zope. Pure HTML/CSS/Javascript crowd will probably hate Zope.
Zope's object database is a really good technology, but as long as I can't gracefully store my code in CVS, I'm hesitant :-) Problem with web is that it is never possible to separate code from content 100%. There are some inititiatives to enable this, but the day when Zope stores its objects in pure FileSystem will be when I see heaven on earth :-)
10. Developer value What is the value of a developer having good knowledge of the platform on the jobmarket. Probably little now.
May be some day economy will be down enough so that companies don't want to invest thousands of dollars making unmaintainable and voluminous Java/ASP/PHP code - then, managers might be looking for skills that can provide solutions; not to just code using some syntax. But that day is not here yet and people still look for *hot* technologies like Java or .Net. What Zope excels is in providing an extensible framework (and more) that does 90% of all you need to do for web application development. If you can read the documents, mailing list and manuals (don't laugh, there is a sizable developer population out there that cribs about lack of documentation unless you print out the appropriate page, underline the things they need to see and put it on their lap), you can easily make/customize the remaining 10% with little time. S Babu http://vsbabu.org/