RE: [Zope] Allaire Spectra
Taken from the Spectra FAQ: "What is the difference between Allaire Spectra and ColdFusion? ColdFusion is Allaire's industry-leading Web application development platform with a community of hundreds of thousands of developers building sites today. Allaire Spectra is a new product family and Allaire's solution for organizations wishing to build large-scale systems that require advanced content management, e-commerce, and personalization capabilities. Allaire Spectra is built entirely with ColdFusion and requires the ColdFusion Enterprise Application Server. Interactive developers use Allaire Spectra's visual tools, along with ColdFusion Studio to build custom site implementations." It looks like Spectra is a set of services interfacing with ColdFusion, for creating applications in the three areas they advertise: content management, e-commerce and personalization. We might infer from this that they're focusing on e-commerce-enabled portals. It's a closed, proprietary, commercial system, as seen in this FAQ: "How much will Allaire Spectra cost? Allaire Spectra is priced at $7,495 per server and requires the ColdFusion Enterprise Application Server." ColdFusion EAS is in turn pretty expensive. (Although not expensive in enterprise terms. Just so expensive that somebody can't "install and play around with it".) In other words, everything Zope isn't and will never be. Good news, I think. They're not learning. -- Alexander Staubo http://www.mop.no/~alex/ "`This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer, `I never could get the hang of Thursdays.'" --Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_
-----Original Message----- From: Jay, Dylan [mailto:djay@lucent.com] Sent: 28. september 1999 03:26 To: 'zope@zope.org' Subject: [Zope] Allaire Spectra
Has anyone had a good look at Allaire Spectra? It looks like Zope on steriods. Or at least marketed that way. Perhaps someone can do a feature for feature comparrison.
http://www1.allaire.com/products/Spectra
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At 04:37 28/09/99 +0200, Alexander Staubo wrote:
[...]Allaire Spectra is built entirely with ColdFusion[...]
This reminds me of a comment a friend made about Microsoft's Site Server: "The World's Largest ASP Application". What a scary thought! These two beasts must be impossible to maintain, extend or customize. BTW, a very large Brazilian ISP has a whole farm of Cold Fusion NT servers. They have a team of SysOps whose main job is to hit the reset button on the hung CF servers in a timely manner. This happens dozens of times every day. Really. Steroid users tend to die soon. Regards, Luciano PS. From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (http://www.m-w.com): specter - noun: 1: a visible disembodied spirit : GHOST; 2: something that haunts or perturbs the mind : PHANTASM
Luciano Ramalho wrote:
At 04:37 28/09/99 +0200, Alexander Staubo wrote:
[...]Allaire Spectra is built entirely with ColdFusion[...]
This reminds me of a comment a friend made about Microsoft's Site Server: "The World's Largest ASP Application". What a scary thought!
These two beasts must be impossible to maintain, extend or customize.
BTW, a very large Brazilian ISP has a whole farm of Cold Fusion NT servers. They have a team of SysOps whose main job is to hit the reset button on the hung CF servers in a timely manner. This happens dozens of times every day. Really. Steroid users tend to die soon.
You should talk them into Zope. ;) -Michel
BTW, a very large Brazilian ISP has a whole farm of Cold Fusion NT servers. They have a team of SysOps whose main job is to hit the reset button on the hung CF servers in a timely manner. This happens dozens of times every day. Really. Steroid users tend to die soon.
You should talk them into Zope. ;)
Maybe, maybe not. The real problem there is the NT system. Would you entrust your website to Zope on NT ?
From personal experience, Zope on NT seems to work better if the server is being hit continuously but I find that, after a lull (eg. no traffic for a while), there is a long delay when the next request is made.
Btw, has anyone got Zope 2.x on NT to work using PCGI (and NOT Zserver) ? chas
chas wrote:
From personal experience, Zope on NT seems to work better if the server is being hit continuously but I find that, after a lull (eg. no traffic for a while), there is a long delay when the next request is made.
When was the last time you tried this? There was a bug in early betas (or maybe alphas) of Zope 2 that caused this. It should be fixed now. If your still seeing this, please report it as a bug in the Collector, Jim -- Jim Fulton mailto:jim@digicool.com Technical Director (888) 344-4332 Python Powered! Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com http://www.python.org Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B) This email address may not be added to any commercial mail list with out my permission. Violation of my privacy with advertising or SPAM will result in a suit for a MINIMUM of $500 damages/incident, $1500 for repeats.
At 04:37 AM 9/28/99 +0200, Alexander Staubo wrote:
ColdFusion EAS is in turn pretty expensive. (Although not expensive in enterprise terms. Just so expensive that somebody can't "install and play around with it".)
Demo is free to download and it's so easy to get up and running that within 2 weeks you'll know whether CF is for you. Well, maybe not you personally since you're a python fiend, but Joe Shmoe in general.
In other words, everything Zope isn't and will never be.
Come now, we can't ignore the similarities between the 2 products. middleware <g>, caching, app server. Spectra builds on top of that in the same way our Zope 'products' build ontop of Zope. The differences lie in : a) how it's marketed (which is what you describe above) b) how it's implemented. ie. technology.
Good news, I think. They're not learning.
On the contrary, I believe that there is a great deal that we could learn from CF. I still remember the first time I downloaded CF and had built my own custom apps within an evening - not just prepackaged apps (like Zope's "products" or just using the web interface) but my own stuff. ie. they had me writing code immediately. I am, to paraphrase snowcrash 'as slow as a mammal can be and still have respiratory functions', so this was no mean feat. Their packaging is superb. This *is* important though we (when wearing our 'techie' hats) would like to think it isn't. I don't refer to the pretty box that software arrives in, I refer to the completeness of the documentation, the website, the very simple tutorials that get people up and running in no time at all. They understand their target audience well ... and the docs are written such that even a total mong would understand. Yes, I speak from experience in the department ;) 3 months ago I had to make a decision for scaling my websites in the long term. Resons for choosing Cold Fusion (and perhaps Spectra) : a) Biggie : there are many, many developers I can get hold of with CF experience. b) I knew that it would be easy to train new staff in CF. We'd done it before and it didn't take long at all. Reasons for not choosing Spectra / Cold Fusion. a) I didn't (and don't) have US$10,000 lying around - that was about the cost of Spectra + Application server was going to cost. b) I wasn't on the beta list and couldn't play with it yet. c) I like Python. I'd much rather be using Python to extend a product than any other language. I was also simply bored of CF - it's not very thrilling. d) Cross platform. (and hence scalability) e) I felt that the "content objects" that Spectra was boasting were nothing more than 'content modules' we've probably all created in one language or another. And in fact, Zope has ZClasses. I don't like paying for stuff I've already made. 3 months later and I'm glad I stuck with Zope though it hasn't been an easy road. However, I've personally seen several people I know fall by the wayside and simply throw their hands up in the air in frustration. Are we even trying to appeal to the same audience as Allaire ? (which goes back to the difference/similarity in the way zope and spectra are marketed) Would we like to have tens of thousands of developers using Zope ? I think so. This isn't meant as a flame or bait and the list is busy enough as it is so pls send abuse directly to me. Just giving credit where it's due. cheers, chas
chas wrote:
This isn't meant as a flame or bait and the list is busy enough as it is so pls send abuse directly to me.
You know, you're the second person today who I've noticed donning the newsgroup-style asbestos suit. It made me think about the fact that I cannot recall *ever* seeing true flaming on this list. Zopistas (at least those who join the list) seem to be a remarkably polite and helpful bunch of revolutionaries <0.1 wink>. Makes me happy to be here. Just thought I'd mention it.
In article <37F0E77D.EE358EB6@4-am.com>, Evan Simpson <evan@4-am.com> writes
chas wrote:
This isn't meant as a flame or bait and the list is busy enough as it is so pls send abuse directly to me.
You know, you're the second person today who I've noticed donning the newsgroup-style asbestos suit.
It made me think about the fact that I cannot recall *ever* seeing true flaming on this list. Zopistas (at least those who join the list) seem to be a remarkably polite and helpful bunch of revolutionaries <0.1 wink>.
Makes me happy to be here. Just thought I'd mention it.
... I think the large number of pythoneers may offset the potentially high flammability of perlers and cgiists <0.001 wink> -- Robin Becker
At 11:06 AM 9/28/99 -0500, Evan Simpson wrote:
chas wrote:
This isn't meant as a flame or bait and the list is busy enough as it is so pls send abuse directly to me.
You know, you're the second person today who I've noticed donning the newsgroup-style asbestos suit.
Guess I'm just paranoid - being a crude Brit, I have a tendency of offending people unintentionally.
It made me think about the fact that I cannot recall *ever* seeing true flaming on this list. Zopistas (at least those who join the list) seem to be a remarkably polite and helpful bunch of revolutionaries <0.1 wink>.
You're absolutely right. In fact, when mentioning reasons why I chose Zope instead of ColdFusion/Spectra, I forgot to mention that one of the reasons was the Python community... it was a very important factor.
Makes me happy to be here. Just thought I'd mention it.
A good reminder. :-) chas
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