RE: Looking for Zope vs. Others at-a-glance comparison
-----Original Message----- From: Richard Moon [mailto:richard.moon@nec.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 11:43 AM To: Spicklemire, Jerry; zope@zope.org Subject: Re: Looking for Zope vs. Others at-a-glance comparison
Perhaps there should be someone producing an 'approved' list of products that meet certain standards of ease of installation, documentation etc.
Funny you should mention that. It sounds exactly like something I asked for about a year ago. It may be the perfect time to raise this point again, though, with the PTK getting ever closer to final release, the ZDP starting to gain some dircet support and validation, and the DC Business Partners program being formalized. So far it's pretty much up to each of us to decide whether or not this or that package is useful. There are some hints, when lot's of posts rave about how great one of the contributed goodies is. It would be great to have a "seal of approval" for contributions that meet minumum standards, with complete checklist of usability, ease of installation, documentation etc. Good Idea! Jerry S.
On Tue, Sep 19, 2000 at 02:10:26PM -0500, Spicklemire, Jerry wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Richard Moon [mailto:richard.moon@nec.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 11:43 AM To: Spicklemire, Jerry; zope@zope.org Subject: Re: Looking for Zope vs. Others at-a-glance comparison
Perhaps there should be someone producing an 'approved' list of products that meet certain standards of ease of installation, documentation etc.
I do not believe that this is as easy to do as you guys seem to think. One big problem is that some distributions and administrators split the Products directory from the zope binaries. This is usually done so that which packages come from Zope proper can be distinguished easily from locally installed products. Now, a package that installs in lib/python/Products is inconvenient. Also, consider autoconf and family. Do they make things easier or not. Some developers swear by them, others swear at them. Should DC tell the developers what tool-set they can use? Even documentation is hard. What is the assumed audience? Frankly, once I understood where the Extensions directory was supposed to go, I have had very little trouble installing any random product that I have had time to pick up. But I have been doing Unix type stuff for 15 years. On the other hand, Zope seems to be attracting a number of people who don't even know how to use find. Telling these people how to compile things, including how to handle linking problems, how to handle loader reconfiguration, and get the results emplaced them in a zope/python accessible directory is hard! Does documentation have to use DocBook? Should it show screen shots? Who will do it? In my experience, the really good developers have neither time, inclination, nor the ability to relate to a newbies concerns to do a good job. In fact, if you are serious about this, I would suggest 2 things be done. One, have DC build a ratings system on each package (and each HowTo) with some categorizations (say, ease of installation, documentation, "importance", speed?). Allow voting (once per zope member per month to limit ballot stuffing), to give others some indication of users' experience. Two, adopt a package, email its author. Write newbie level documentation. Take the heat and the grumbles when your documentation is not accurate. Jim
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Spicklemire, Jerry