Win GO wrote:

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Well, how does digging a hole with a bulldozer compare to doing it with a shovel? You can accomplish some of the same things by using Apache alone, but you'll end up doing a lot more work for a much smaller result.

does that mean that Zope can do what Apache can, and some more (like animation and stuff)?

Not animation, but database driven web-applications. Apache on it's own will do nothing but send files from your server to the browser. You can write CGI scripts in Perl, or any of a number of other solutions, but you're going to have to go to something a bit more comprehensive like PHP or JSP in order to do really powerful web appliactions that let your users interact with the data in your database. And even with those, you'll probably have to build a lot of the underpinnings for your application like security, user management, etc. With Zope, most of the common stuff has already been built for you, and you only need to build those features that are unique to your site.

here are other questions:

* if we are to have somebody trained or devote some time to learning Zope, what would be basic skills that the person should have? (ie. programming/scripting languages, html, etc.)

Definitely HTML, and programming in some language would probably be a good idea. Other skills that are useful to have are: programming in an object-oriented language (such as C++ or Java, if not Python), a good understanding of web-application architecture and client server interaction, a basic understanding of server administration (whatever platform you use), however much RDBMS and SQL experience you think they'll need to integrate with your existing databases, and, umm... I think that covers most of it.

* How long will such learning process take? (before we can have a running and functioning site)

Well without knowing what functionality you need, it's hard to say. A beginner in Zope, who has only HTML and basic computer skills, could have *something* done in a couple of days. How good it'll be kind of depends on how quick they are on the uptake, as well as how good they are at using the web for research (searching the mailing list archives). It's also not too likely that this will be anything but the equivalent of a brochureware site, but *much* easier to maintain and enhance further. Anything better or more customized will take more time. HTH, Michael Bernstein.