Amos Latteier writes:
Just to reiterate, the Portal Toolkit is not yet available, it should be out in beta this month.
Waiting on tenterhooks... Yesterday I read Philip Greenspun's book on Web publishing (http://www.photo.net/wtr/thebook/), and much of what he suggests seems like a natural fit to the Portal Toolkit. I'd recommend everyone check it out; the complete book is on-line, though it's well worth buying just for entertainment value. I've never pushed strongly for using Zope on our Web site (www.mems-exchange.org) for a few reasons: 1) Another programmer had already done some work with Java servlets, so we have some servlets to do various things. However, I've found that Java is really awful and cumbersome for Web programming. (But without automatic reloading of ExternalMethods, Zope isn't much *less* cumbersome for tasks that can't be handled in DTML.) 2) A fair amount of source code reading is still required, and Zope is so full of cutting-edge Python technique that it's not easy even for a long-time Python like me; for a new Python user, it would be deadly. 3) I still haven't really figured out what the idioms are for implementing complicated forms. DTML is sufficient for simple forms with 2 or 3 fields, but if you have a 22-field form with complicated interactions between fields, DTML won't cut it. At DC, do you write ExternalMethods for such purposes, or full-blown products? How do you debug them without going insane from manually reloading ExternalMethods all the time? However, the Portal Toolkit may well prove to be the wedge for getting Zope on the site. I've already done a few simple Java servlets for registering users and presenting customized pages for a user, the intention being to turn www.mems-exchange.org into a specialized portal aimed at MEMS researchers and users of our virtual fab. People would have a single page which listed all of their ongoing jobs, recent status changes ("Your etch step #4 has completed; click here for metrology data"), MEMS news of interest to them, and similar info. If the Portal Toolkit could be used for this, it would save a *tremendous* amount of effort and wheel-reinventing. if you need someone to try out an alpha, let me know... -- A.M. Kuchling http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/ Three hundred years of tears have soured the very stones of this house. Drink deep, gentle reader: you have come too far to turn back now. -- Bethlehem Hospital, or Bedlam, in SEBASTIAN O #1