can I move my zope site off zope?
So I'm considering doing a major product with zope, and I'd like to hear what people think about taking a site off of zope. I know it's a great framework to build in, but I'm really used to Database programming and ma inclined to use that. I know you can have SQL adapters in Zope, but for two reasons I don't want to use them, 1. They can be a hassle to set up and since this is a distributed app, this might be a problem. 2. It doesn't really take advantage of the object oriented nature of zope's content management. It basically then is just an excuse for a good templating engine. What I am worried about though is if I build my product without SQL(it is a task management/portal suite), it will forever live on Zope, and getting to that data from other programs will be next to impossible. Does anybody have any experience/advice on this, please let's hear from the zealots AND the skeptics. I know Zope is awesome, I just want to make sure it doesn't get me in a proprietary bind. Thanx J
From: "Jacob Singh" <jacob@prisonbooks.org>
What I am worried about though is if I build my product without SQL(it is a task management/portal suite), it will forever live on Zope
Yeah? And the problem is? :-)
and getting to that data from other programs will be next to impossible.
Well, you can talk to a ZODB externally too, so next to impossible: Nah...
I just want to make sure it doesn't get me in a proprietary bind.
It's open source, so that risk is minimal. :-) To me, your logic seems to go like this: "a) If I put my data in a ODBM like ZODB, I can't access it from a RDBM-environment. b) If I put my data into an SQL database I won't use the full power of Zope. c) Therefore I should not use Zope at all". I don't really agree with the logic in that. :-) If you decide to put your data into an RDBM environment to get SQL access then you will not get object oriented benefits no matter what you do. You will have to choose: Go fully OO, or wrap relational data in an OO suit. In any case, Zope seems to work fin (although I don't know anything about your conserns when it comes to distributred site. Maybe somebody else can fill in there). Just for interest: What other products are you considering besides Zope?
Well, I'd probably use PHP/MySQL because of it's strong following and general knowledge. Also because of it's ease of portability. Also, it's easier because I know SQL programming and ZODB seems like a bitch work with because dtml is so limiting (to me), probably because of my ignorance of it. -----Original Message----- From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org] On Behalf Of Lennart Regebro Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 11:03 AM To: zope@zope.org Subject: Re: [Zope] can I move my zope site off zope? From: "Jacob Singh" <jacob@prisonbooks.org>
What I am worried about though is if I build my product without SQL(it is a task management/portal suite), it will forever live on Zope
Yeah? And the problem is? :-)
and getting to that data from other programs will be next to impossible.
Well, you can talk to a ZODB externally too, so next to impossible: Nah...
I just want to make sure it doesn't get me in a proprietary bind.
It's open source, so that risk is minimal. :-) To me, your logic seems to go like this: "a) If I put my data in a ODBM like ZODB, I can't access it from a RDBM-environment. b) If I put my data into an SQL database I won't use the full power of Zope. c) Therefore I should not use Zope at all". I don't really agree with the logic in that. :-) If you decide to put your data into an RDBM environment to get SQL access then you will not get object oriented benefits no matter what you do. You will have to choose: Go fully OO, or wrap relational data in an OO suit. In any case, Zope seems to work fin (although I don't know anything about your conserns when it comes to distributred site. Maybe somebody else can fill in there). Just for interest: What other products are you considering besides Zope? _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
From: "Jacob Singh" <jacob@prisonbooks.org>
Well, I'd probably use PHP/MySQL because of it's strong following and general knowledge.
*Ugh!* <- Religious utterance. :-)
it's easier because I know SQL programming and ZODB seems like a bitch work with because dtml is so limiting (to me), probably because of my ignorance of it.
Nah, DTML is limiting. Get into making Zope products with Python instead. I find it easier to do complex things that way, and then you can do anything. But sure, the learning curve for Zope is steep...
Perhaps you need to look at http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue25/zope/ to see why to use Zope and in particular to portabilaty... -----Original Message----- From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of Jacob Singh Sent: 27 November 2001 16:55 To: 'Lennart Regebro'; zope@zope.org Subject: RE: [Zope] can I move my zope site off zope? Well, I'd probably use PHP/MySQL because of it's strong following and general knowledge. Also because of it's ease of portability. Also, it's easier because I know SQL programming and ZODB seems like a bitch work with because dtml is so limiting (to me), probably because of my ignorance of it. -----Original Message----- From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org] On Behalf Of Lennart Regebro Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 11:03 AM To: zope@zope.org Subject: Re: [Zope] can I move my zope site off zope? From: "Jacob Singh" <jacob@prisonbooks.org>
What I am worried about though is if I build my product without SQL(it is a task management/portal suite), it will forever live on Zope
Yeah? And the problem is? :-)
and getting to that data from other programs will be next to impossible.
Well, you can talk to a ZODB externally too, so next to impossible: Nah...
I just want to make sure it doesn't get me in a proprietary bind.
It's open source, so that risk is minimal. :-) To me, your logic seems to go like this: "a) If I put my data in a ODBM like ZODB, I can't access it from a RDBM-environment. b) If I put my data into an SQL database I won't use the full power of Zope. c) Therefore I should not use Zope at all". I don't really agree with the logic in that. :-) If you decide to put your data into an RDBM environment to get SQL access then you will not get object oriented benefits no matter what you do. You will have to choose: Go fully OO, or wrap relational data in an OO suit. In any case, Zope seems to work fin (although I don't know anything about your conserns when it comes to distributred site. Maybe somebody else can fill in there). Just for interest: What other products are you considering besides Zope? _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev ) _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
"Jacob Singh" <jacob@prisonbooks.org> writes:
Well, I'd probably use PHP/MySQL because of it's strong following and general knowledge. Also because of it's ease of portability. Also, it's easier because I know SQL programming and ZODB seems like a bitch work with because dtml is so limiting (to me), probably because of my ignorance of it.
PHP/MySQL is a well tested combination, available from nearly every web hosting service on the planet. I am a former PHP user myself, and I personally feel that you could do much worse than PHP. PHP also has a much shallower learning curve than Zope, and the documentation available for PHP is excellent (Zope's documentation has improved dramatically, but it is still lacking). However, Zope is no slouch either. I tend to put my data in an RDBMS (PostgreSQL to be precise), for much the same reasons that you stated in your original post. I am not concerned about getting data out of PostgreSQL once I put it there, nor am I concerned that my database will get too large for PostgreSQL to handle. I am not quite as confident in the ZODB. That being said, I think that Zope and ZSQL have definite advantages over PHP. For one thing the fact that Zope is a persistent process means that it can be much more intelligent about connection pooling and data caching. Instead of having a separate persistent connection for each instance of Apache you end up with a pool of connections that Zope can re-use intelligently. I also appreciate the fact that Zope forces me to separate my SQL code from my other logic code. With PHP it is far too easy to jumble SQL with business logic and presentation logic making your site much harder to maintain. Zope + ZSQL also gives you XML-RPC for free. I like being able to re-use the logic I have written in my Zope site in other applications, and ZSQL is a nice database abstraction layer just in case you ever feel like migrating to another database. With Zope you also get built in security awareness, that's handy too. DTML *is* limiting, but in a good way. Web designers whose eyes would pop right out of their heads when confronted with PHP or Python can actually get work done in DTML, and the new TALES templating stuff is even cooler. Most business logic, however, should probably be written in Python. I happen to really like Python, so this makes me happy :). Better yet the new Python Scripts allow you to use a significant portion of Python without playing with External Methods or building products. Zope is very cool, and not only because of the ZODB. Jason
At 11:55 AM 11/27/2001 -0500, Jacob Singh wrote:
Well, I'd probably use PHP/MySQL because of it's strong following and general knowledge. Also because of it's ease of portability. Also, it's easier because I know SQL programming and ZODB seems like a bitch work with because dtml is so limiting (to me), probably because of my ignorance of it.
Well, there is the ZOQL Method that has very SQL-like behavior... Site: http://demo.iuveno-net.de/iuveno/Products/ZOQLMethod Regards, Stephan -- Stephan Richter CBU - Physics and Chemistry Student Web2k - Web Design/Development & Technical Project Management
Jacob Singh wrote:
Well, I'd probably use PHP/MySQL because of it's strong following and general knowledge.
So go use it!
Also because of it's ease of portability.
Huh?!
Also, it's easier because I know SQL programming and ZODB seems like a bitch work with because dtml is so limiting (to me),
you shouldn't using DTML, you should be using python. If you know SQL, use that, don't use Zope! Chris
From: "Chris Withers" <chrisw@nipltd.com>
If you know SQL, use that, don't use Zope!
I don't understand this comment. Firstly, it is quite possible to use both SQL and Zope. Secondly, the question was if he should go completely object-oriented or store the data relationally. The consensus so far seems to be that no matter what he chooses, Zope is an excellent way of accessing the data. I know SQL. I don't try to use it for vereything just because I know it. This is simply because many things do not suit SQL. I have seen many content management systems that store the data in a relational database (often made with PHP, too) and they all have the same problems that CM system made in Zope doens't have, because a SQL database is simply not suited well to storing a website. I use SQL withing Zope if I need to share the data with non-Zopyfiable systems. Otherwise not. It works best that way.
If you are considering using RDBMSs for storing content, I suppose your content is tabular (lots of similar objects). These kind of data maps nicely to folders with special objects inside, for instance. Having done that (placed your tasks on, say, instances of the "Task" class), it is easy to add a "SomeML" method to the class and have it exporting itself neatly in an almost database-import-ready form. You can make them catalog-aware and build some catalogs to help you query your data (this is the most difficult aspect for "relationalists" in Zope - it is for me) You don't even need to add the method to the class: just let it be acquired by placing it in some container above it. If you really wanted to, you could also add a "SQL" method that would generate the proper "INSERT INTO" statements for all objects of a specific type in your folder. As for getting to the data INSIDE Zope, you can do it in the ways I said. You can also use XML-RPC to access the data (there is a fun example in the Zope Book) or you can access the data using HTTP and getting the data by the afore mentioned XML method. There may be better ways, but I have to educate myself on XML-RPC, SOAP and other stuff like that Isn't Zope great or what? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jacob Singh" <jacob@prisonbooks.org> To: <zope@zope.org> Sent: terça-feira, 27 de novembro de 2001 13:35 Subject: [Zope] can I move my zope site off zope?
So I'm considering doing a major product with zope, and I'd like to hear what people think about taking a site off of zope. I know it's a great framework to build in, but I'm really used to Database programming and ma inclined to use that. I know you can have SQL adapters in Zope, but for two reasons I don't want to use them,
1. They can be a hassle to set
up and since this is a distributed app, this might be a problem.
2. It
doesn't really take advantage of the object oriented nature of zope's content management. It basically then is just an excuse for a good templating engine. What I am worried about though is if I build my product without SQL(it is a task management/portal suite), it will forever live on Zope, and getting to that data from other programs will be next to impossible. Does anybody have any experience/advice on this, please let's hear from the zealots AND the skeptics. I know Zope is awesome, I just want to make sure it doesn't get me in a proprietary bind. Thanx J
_______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )
participants (7)
-
Chris Withers -
Jacob Singh -
Jason Earl -
Lennart Regebro -
Norman Khine -
Ricardo L. A. Bánffy -
Stephan Richter