Greetings, all! I just joined the mailing list and my .org is considering moving to an Open Source middleware framework like Zope. I've searched through some of the list-serv archives and read through the Zope Newbie FAQ, but didn't see any topics on some of the questions I have about using Zope. If anyone can tell me some user experience stories, I'd much appreciate it. Specifically, I'm wondering: * what kind of web applications are you building and using with Zope? * which web server are you deploying Zope on? * how active is the Zope user community? * how easy [or not] is it to build custom apps or extend the use of Zope with Python? * any comparisons to Tomcat? or other Java-based frameworks? Thanks in advance! ..dean
On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 06:16:23PM -0800, Dean Matsueda wrote:
* what kind of web applications are you building and using with Zope?
Right now I'm up to my eyeballs in a kind of thorny content management system which is served at many virtual hosts with a different "skin" for each host. This is based on CMFDefault but keeps diverging further from it.
* which web server are you deploying Zope on?
Errr, zope *is* a web server (among other things). But it's most often deployed behind a proxy. We use Apache for that. We run several zope instances and ZEO, all on linux boxes.
* how active is the Zope user community?
Very. Several dozen messages on this list per day, several active community-driven sites (www.zopezen.org, www.zopelabs.com, and of course the member stuff on www.zope.org, etc ...), and a pretty helpful and interesting IRC channel (#zope on irc.openprojects.net). THat's not to mention the communities around more specific topics: the zope-cmf list, the #plone channel...
* how easy [or not] is it to build custom apps or extend the use of Zope with Python?
Both. :) Adding a Script (Python) or an External Method is trivial, and you can get a lot of mileage out of that. But if you need new classes, it's time for a python-based Zope Product, which raises the bar quite a bit, but it's very rewarding. The mxmEasyProduct stuff might be a help with getting new products started. And there are *tons* of products with source code you can look through...
* any comparisons to Tomcat? or other Java-based frameworks?
No. ;) -- Paul Winkler http://www.slinkp.com "Welcome to Muppet Labs, where the future is made - today!"
Paul Winkler wrote:
On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 06:16:23PM -0800, Dean Matsueda wrote:
[...]
* any comparisons to Tomcat? or other Java-based frameworks?
No. ;)
Yes :-)) Note I use both Zope and Tomcat so this is not based on religious feelings. Using Zope will allow you to focus on getting your work done without having to wade through tons of tutorials and docs about the next Java API, SDK version security toolkit, ... all before getting one page up. You will get work done in 20-25% of the time with your mind feeling a lot lighter. The Zope database adapter and DTML support for SQL queries allows powerful apps to be built rapidly and also maintained with much less pain. The only reason you would not use Zope and use Tomcat would be if there was a corporate policy of using Java and J2EE and/or you had to be tightly coupled into some existing Java application/platform. ( Loosely coupled you can still do with Zope and XML messaging/SOAP). That is the current reason I use Tomcat in some areas. -- Statistics show that most people are in the majority, while fewer are in the minority Nitin Borwankar nitin@borwankar.com
participants (3)
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Dean Matsueda -
Nitin Borwankar -
Paul Winkler