While I probably abuse the list by doing this, if I can't find documentation after an hour of searching, I post a note to this list and they have an answer (like the one Phil just posted). I'm often looking in the wrong places or for the wrong thing. But the point about learning to use Zope is a good one. The "Learn Zope" page should have a channel for newbies and for experienced programmers. If people can find what they want quickly, they may not stick around long enough to see. Also, maybe a more detailed TOC for the Zope Book would help (like in the Postgres documentation). Looking at the Zope Book TOC doesn't really show you where to find the Python/XML bits (though "Advanced Scripting" is a nice clue). I sympathize, Zooko, I too suffer from poor searching capabilities. And there are others out there like us, I am sure. -Don +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [Zope] data point on ease of learning Zope -- I give up. zooko@zooko.com zooko@zooko.com Thu, 01 Mar 2001 13:59:00 -0800 Hi Zopesters! I'm an experienced Python programmer, and I need to hack together a quick web app that simply accepts POSTed XML data entries from authenticated users, stores the data persistently, and provides a formatted HTML representation of the list of all such entries to the same authenticated user. I thought I would look at using ZODB so that I could have the coolness of nearly transparent persistence. Then I thought I would use Zope so that I wouldn't have to bother with connecting the HTTP transactions to the logic. So I did `apt-get install zope'[1] to download and install the current Debian-packaged version of Zope (v2.2.4), and while I was waiting on the download I went to zope.org. It is now about 3 hours later and I have not yet found any "example code" or instructions that shows how to set up a basic web site or how to write Python code that gets executed, CGI-style, in response to an HTTP transaction. I browsed zope.org, the ZDP, and a site called "ZopeNewbies". I looked at the "QuickStart" that came with the zope server, but all I saw was how to edit web pages using DTML. I don't want to have anything to do with DTML (though we use it in my product, Mojo Nation[2], which BTW is probably the second-biggest open source Python app, after Zope), and I don't want to edit any static pages, so I stopped reading the "QuickStart". So now I give up. I'm going to install apache (`apt-get install apache'), and use the Python bsddb module for a simple dict-like database. Even though I wasted about half of my scheduled time on trying to set up a basic Zope server, I'll probably still have my prototype up and running 3 hours from now, when I have a meeting with my co-workers. Regards, Zooko [1] apt-get is the app that implements Debian's package management system. [2] http://mojonation.net/