I don't think the issue is technical, or GUI/UI related. There may be stuff to discuss there, but that wasn't by point. One of the reasons zope.org may be hard to fix is that (a) zope.org is a big complicated site that needs a real commitment, (b) few people can directly work on it, (c) cleaning it up will be painful and probably involve controversial decisions including removal of useful legacy data. (As an aside, Dieter M suggested I move this discussion to zope-dev which I am doing. He is an inestimable assert to the community and anybody who uses Zope owes him a huge debt.) On Sep 26, 2007, at 3:07 PM, Dieter Maurer wrote:

Gregory Dudek wrote at 2007-9-26 10:45 -0400:

...

... I am not criticizing the people on this list or the other Zope developers: I have enormous appreciation for what has been built, I just would hate to see is dwindle in vitality and use.

Thank you for your suggestions!

I do not belong to those who can fix the problem you have described (I am a pure backend developper) but nevertheless I appreciate that you have spoken up.

If you do not get further responses, you may try again on "zope-dev@zope.org". I am not sure that the core team is around on this list.

-- Dieter

While I agree that the zope resources look a bit stale, I think that zope itself has never been so relevant. I am a new zope developer and I find that zope fits well with many of the new web techniques. I haven't bothered to learn much page templates because my site is almost completely built out of a javascript library (extjs) that provides widgets, so I don't need much more than some simple dtml calls. It is build on REST principals which fits naturally with zope as a back end and it is a web service so I don't need a relational database. (relational databases are of limited value when you are building a new web service that will fit within a SOA). Also, Zope is easy to manage through the web so my users don't need to hire a DBA. I think the problem with zope was that it provided solutions to 2008 web development problems in 2002. If it was a private product I would re-brand it and announce it as the perfect back end for RESTful web services. One suggestion: if only the admin interface was more easily scriptable from command line python scripts. I have seen a few examples but it would be nice to get the whole API in one place in a document or a full featured application. Tim On 9/26/07, baiewola <baiewola@yahoo.com> wrote:

Often when you find a product on zope.org, there's just a link out to another site, so the most recent downloads aren't even available on zope.org. It's often more useful and faster just to google on your zope topics, rather than use zope.org.

How can the community help, that's what we need to know?

--- Gregory Dudek <dudek@cim.mcgill.ca> wrote:

...

I have been a Zope developer & user for several years. Zope is great

and it has had a major impact on my work. All this to say I am an experienced Zope user and supporter.

I think the Zope is in major trouble and the Zope.org web site is badly in need of attention. I started using zope in 2001 at Xerox PARC and the helpful and persuasive resources at zope.org were a major factor. Today, zope.org is full of dead links and it very hard to use unless you are already experienced. Getting started with

Zope today is harder now than is was, even though the actual software

is better.

A key factor is that from the zope.org web site it is not clear if the community is healthy or not, and the general impression is that the project is stalled since so many links are dead and defunct (and

in fact I am not so sure of the zope community health myself any longer, despite the ongoing zope postings here). In my opinion, making zope.org look healthy and be usable is the MOST important obstacle for the Zope community. I believe this is both a symptom and a cause of disarray in the Zope user/developer community.

Zope was always a bit hairy to get into, without saying anything about Plone development or Zope 3, I just want to point out that without a clear simple up-to-date main web site, things are looking really bad. I introduced some zope-based material in an introductory

computer science course a few years ago with moderate success, but am

starting to doubt it would be appropriate any longer.

I am not criticizing the people on this list or the other Zope developers: I have enormous appreciation for what has been built, I just would hate to see is dwindle in vitality and use.

Greg

----

Appendix (Examples)

Specific evidence (these are just examples): 1) search for something, say "user folder" on zope.org Pages you get are dated 2001, 2000, 2003, ....

Let's try link 3 for the extensible user folder (one of the formerly more popular and useful items in the first few listed). Click the "more info link": dead page (Insufficient Privileges)

2) Click "Zope Products" on the sidebar. Most of the listed products are old.

3) "Resources" Sidebar Item. Click "Zope Links". -> Site Error _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )

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I suspect almost everybody on this list is aware that many zope activities have moved elsewhere, but it still looks bad to have the main site looking neglected. For many different reasons. This is even more true for a project that is all about web development! Even with the other sites, there are still things (like the list of other Zope sites) that zope.org is necessary for. I am very happy to hear that there is high hopes for the future. As good as the cheeseshop might be, and it does have some nice features, it's still not as good as the zope.org product list once was, since the product list was organized specifically for zope development. I know this cannot continue on zope.org, but hopefully zope.org can provide the necessary guidance for using the other sites. Greg On Sep 28, 2007, at 6:13 AM, Philipp von Weitershausen wrote:

Gregory Dudek wrote:

...

A key factor is that from the zope.org web site it is not clear if the community is healthy or not, and the general impression is that the project is stalled since so many links are dead and defunct (and in fact I am not so sure of the zope community health myself any longer, despite the ongoing zope postings here). In my opinion, making zope.org look healthy and be usable is the MOST important obstacle for the Zope community. I believe this is both a symptom and a cause of disarray in the Zope user/developer community. Zope was always a bit hairy to get into, without saying anything about Plone development or Zope 3, I just want to point out that without a clear simple up-to-date main web site, things are looking really bad. I introduced some zope-based material in an introductory computer science course a few years ago with moderate success, but am starting to doubt it would be appropriate any longer. I am not criticizing the people on this list or the other Zope developers: I have enormous appreciation for what has been built, I just would hate to see is dwindle in vitality and use.

Gregory, thanks for bringing this up. Please be assured that we're aware of this problem just as well. With the Zope Foundation in place, we can now tackle tasks like zope.org much better. But it takes time to get settled and we need volunteers. We've made some progress already, but we're not there yet. There's a committee which is actively planning on improving zope.org in the near future.

As far as zope.org's focus is concerned, it has shifted, as many already pointed out. We're no longer trying to make it a site with member accounts. Software is best released through the Python CheeseShop (aka PyPI) these days and bug collectors can be found on Launchpad. Outsourcing high-maintenance factors like these will allow us to focus on zope.org's actual message: promoting Zope.

-- http://worldcookery.com -- Professional Zope documentation and training

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